control on Future

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.

Gracious God, sometimes I think that I can figure out all the consequences of my decisions. I can become overly impressed with what I perceive to be my strategic vision and analysis. Forgive me for my...

Preaching Commentary a brief introduction I would like to start with a rather big question. How do we know that we are, in fact, Christians? We find some direction from Jesus on this subject in Mat...

A few years ago a grizzly attacked a hiker not far from our home and mauled him badly. The hiker had heard of the wonder and beauty of the mountains of Montana and drove across the country from North ...

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

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...

We delude ourselves into believing that if we can just get everything done, if we can only tie up all the loose ends, if we can even once get ahead of the crush, we will prove our worth and establish ...

The novel Martin Chuzzlewit , written by Charles Dickens, is one of his least successful works, though Dickens himself commented to a friend that he believed it was his greatest work up to its pu...

Faith is a free surrender and a joyous wager on the unseen, unknown, untested goodness of God.

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

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...

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...

My secret is that I want to be relevant and popular. I want my desires fulfilled and pain minimized. I want a manageable relationship with an institution rather than messy relationships with real peop...

For all the gifts and abilities that God has given us, we are still his creatures who do not possess the divine control over life. But that limit is rejected in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The ...

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...

We might not say we believe a Jesus-plus-our-efforts idea of the gospel, but when we place our performances on the pedestal of personal progress, we’re not relying on the grace of God. We’re worshipin...

In this short excerpt, pastor and author Austin Fischer summarizes the late 19th century book Flatland as an analogy for the often-one-dimensional faith that exists our time: tIn 1884, an English sc...

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 other thing that helps me deal with my compulsion to control things through my direct involvement and my fear of missing out is what Henri Nouwen has called “the ministry of absence.” Jesus modele...

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

God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: You are always and forever for us: We can’t run away from Your presence; nor out-sin Your amazing grace and forgiveness. We can’t exhaust Your unconditional love nor ...

Fearful people live within restrictive boundaries…. People who live in fear feel compelled to remain in control. They attempt to control themselves and they attempt to control their world. Often despi...

Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a co...

Holy God, we can be so full of fear at times – afraid of the unknown; afraid of what is beyond our control; afraid of what is strange to us. And we know that fear stops us in our tracks, hinders our a...

“Historical insecurity” and “cosmic instability” are the ingredients of existential fear that inspire this Psalm of Trust, according to James Mays in his Interpretation Commentary series on the Psal...

Almighty God, we too often live in fear. Fear drives our self-preservation, our self-centered decisions, and prevents us from comprehending the wonder of your presence among us. Like Peter, we would d...

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...

The opposite of faith isn't doubt; it's certainty and control.

Preaching Commentary “Historical insecurity” and “cosmic instability” are the ingredients of existential fear that inspire this Psalm of Trust, according to James Mays in his Interpretation Comment...

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