christian living on Controlling God

Divine Creator, your ways are above our ways. No matter how hard we try, you will always confound us. Too often we try to reduce you into something we can fully comprehend, or something we can control...

Lord, our King, we confess our tendency to build homes and kingdoms that are more for us than they are for you. We confess the pride we take in our own security and ability to protect and to preserve....

Lord Jesus—the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, and the author of change, who’s constantly doing “a new thing,” which makes us sit up and take notice. We admit, we’d be more comfortable with a pred...

Gracious Spirit, you are at work all around us. You prompt us to follow you, and you convict us when we have missed your leading. Please forgive us for the times that we miss your presence. Please hum...

This is the beautiful community that Herman Bavinck gets at when he writes, The image of God is much too rich for it to be fully realized in a single human being, however richly gifted that human bein...

We have set our hope on you, our living God, as those who set course for home from distant places. But we need your help if we are to keep on course: we need fresh sight of you, on which to check our ...

We are so accustomed to relying upon words to manage and control others. If we are silent, who will take control? God will take control, but we will never let him take control until we trust him. Sile...

Let me share one more lesson I am learning about daily surrender. It concerns the way we relate to others. Daily we encounter people who express views opposite to our own, hold values with which we ca...

We all go through desert seasons and have the opportunity to determine how we will respond. The cyclical frustrations I faced in regard to my desire for control, fear, and the longing to feel chosen w...

Lord, though you should guide us, we inform ourselves; though you should rule us, we control ourselves; though you should fulfill us, we console ourselves. We think your truth too high, your will too ...

The point is this. If you want to know what it means to talk about God being ‘in charge of’ the world, or being ‘in control’, or being ‘sovereign’, then Jesus himself instructs you to rethink the noti...

I will not try to run my own life or the lives of others; that is God's business.

Loving and gracious God, we know we do not always live the life to which we are called: We turn away from You, and from our true selves. You command us to shine Your light, but we often hide it instea...

God of all times and places, we confess that we try to limit our exposure to you. We try to limit your presence to a tidy little box, safely tucked away where we can pull you out as needed. We try to ...

In their excellent book Invitation to a Journey , M. Robert Mulholland and Ruth Haley Barton describe the foundation of life as being spiritual in nature. This means we are constantly be “formed” s...

The God who loans you life sees your every move, hears each word you speak, knows your every thought. You are seen by God. Noticed. Known.

Curiously enough, it is a fear of how grace will change and improve them that keeps many souls away from God. They want God to take them as they are and let them stay that way. They want Him to take a...

If I were going to begin practicing the presence of God for the first time today, it would help to begin by admitting the three most terrible truths of our existence: that we are so ruined, and so lov...

Sometimes trust takes time. We all love to be in control, but when you start to give some of that up, it's freeing. Start with some of the little things. Give those things up to the Lord.

This is God’s universe, and God does things his way. You may have a better way, but you don’t have a universe.

Dear God, Sometimes fear is an idol that we believe will help us control our lives. Sometimes fear is a companion that we let take the place of You. Sometimes fear is the enemy that tells us You are n...

The modern way with God is to set him at a distance, if not to deny him altogether; and the irony is that modern Christians, preoccupied with maintaining religious practices in an irreligious world, h...

Freedom in Christ allows you to control the desires that once controlled you.

Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, to o...

The insight that we can exercise some control over our thoughts and feelings is deep in Christianity.

Pastor: And the LORD said to Job: “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.” All: Then Job answered the LORD and said: “Behold, I am of small account...

Almighty God, we bow before You, humbly able to admit how small, fragile, and dependent we are. Unfortunately, for many of us, it takes a disaster to convince us that we are not in control. Over the p...

Almighty, gracious God, we confess to you that we do not see what you see. You are ever-present, speaking, coaxing, prodding, leading, guiding, and motivating. Yet that is not enough. Like the stubbor...

Only the one true God can take the risk of ruling by relying on the power of humility and love.

Forgive us, O God, when we limit you – When we remake you in our image, When we claim our causes as your own, When we box you in, And explain you away, And in our attempts at understanding, whittle aw...