control on Actions

What do you want to achieve? Greater riches? Cheaper chicken? A happier life, a longer life? Is it power over your neighbors that you are after? Are you only running away from your death? Or are you s...

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556), the archbishop of Canterbury from 1532 to 1556, played a pivotal role in the English Reformation. A key figure in Henry VIII’s break with the Roman Catholic Church, Cranmer...

Your decisions . . . along with your responses to other people’s decisions, which are also your decisions...are about the only thing you can control in life, which means your decisions are how you con...

Heavenly Father, Your love for us is so very evident. Everywhere we look, we see tangible proof of Your great care for us. Yet, when it comes to following You, we confess that we often don’t surrender...

I was invited to visit a friend who was very sick. He was a man about fifty-three years old who had lived a very active, useful, faithful, creative life. Actually, he was a social activist who had car...

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.

The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.

The circumstances we ask God to CHANGE are often the circumstances God is using to CHANGE US.

The way most of us serve keeps us in control. We choose whom, when, where and how we will serve. We stay in charge. Jesus is calling for something else. He is calling us to be servants. When we make t...

Manipulation is the use of influence to control others for personal gain. It is the dark side of influence. … While manipulation is inherently evil, influence is the best way to lead and move others t...

Almighty God, harsh words and personal attacks can bring out the worst in us. We find ourselves spending energy on thoughts of retaliation and plans to protect ourselves. Father forgive us. We long to...

Dear Lord, we come before You today as Your children. We praise You as the God of all creation and the giver of life. You have made us, saved us, and called us to be Your people and to serve in Your K...

Let’s state the obvious, because the obvious is easy to take for granted and forget. You are not other people. You are you. You have no control over other people. You have no absolute control over wha...

Crises serve to remind us that we are fundamentally not in control.

Kate Bowler is a gifted scholar and writer who, as a young wife and mom, was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer—kept going six months at a time thanks to immunotherapy. She writes honestly about how ...

Whatever controls us is our lord. The person who seeks power is controlled by power. The person who seeks acceptance is controlled by acceptance. We do not control ourselves. We are controlled by the ...

One of my small joys in life is grocery shopping. Ever since our kids were old enough to sit up, they fawned over the grocery carts that looked like little cars. Those carts are to grocery shopping wh...

A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.

Note: This was originally posted on February 15, 2017 on the Stirring Our Affections website. Does our working shape us? Depending on what you do, you might answer that readily in the affirmativ...

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...

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...

One of my favorite movies is Hoosiers (1986). It tells the story of a small-town basketball team from Hickory, Indiana, that finds greatness under the leadership of their coach, Norman Dale. The...

Father God: It is sometimes hard for us to understand what You do. We are in trouble. We want You to come rescue us right now, like the cavalry riding over a hill or the Lone Ranger appearing out of n...

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

More than any other Discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us. … We cover up what is inside us with food and other good things, but in fasting these things surface. If pride controls us, ...

Almighty and loving God, all of us here today are hurting. Some of us are hurting as the result of circumstances beyond our control. Some of us are hurting because of our own choices. Some of us are f...

As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will be filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain a...

If we want to turn in the direction of what is life giving, we are going to have to let go of Winter. “’Let go’ of the dark, which you wrap yourself in like a straitjacket, and let in the light. Stop ...

Sin is a deep interior dislocation of the soul. It's a desire to keep control of your life.

The difference between forming ourselves and being formed is the vital issue of control.