Friday, June 3, 2022

CONFESSIONS OF AN INADEQUATE CONTROL-FREAK

 

 

The more anxious and fearful we are, the more we try to control those things that threaten us—being late, making a bad decision, rejection, failure, or letting someone down.
 
A little anxiousness is a good thing, but out-of-control anxiousness, worry, and fear are hard to endure. To make matters worse, we also worry that we cannot turn them off as our Lord instructs us (Matthew 6:25-34). Besides, we are not in control. Instead, our Lord is! “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
 
The good news is that our Lord is greater than our weaknesses and infirmities. He even uses these to make us into His bridesmaids. He even used an affliction—Satan’s thorn in the flesh—to mold Paul. Our Lord wouldn’t even hear Paul’s cry for deliverance:
 
·       But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)
 
God is greater than any of our weaknesses or infirmities. Knowing this enabled Paul to even boast in them.
 
We need to regard suffering, even those things that might be regarded as pathological suffering, as God’s positive building blocks rather than negatives, which laugh at our efforts to overcome them. If we can view our struggles through these eyes, we can better accept them with a “yes—another opportunity for us to be strong in the Lord” rather than an “oh no!” This understanding had enabled Paul to boast rather than moan.
 
It also had enabled me! I am now 45 years in the Lord. Consequently, I can look back to see what the Lord has accomplished through my weaknesses. Suffering my weaknesses and infirmities forced me to trust in His Word rather than in my own strength and understanding:
 
·       Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
 
I want to be pampered by the Lord! Therefore, I’d rather trust in His guidance and oversight than in my feeble attempts at control. We need to adopt Paul’s God-given understanding:
 
·       But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10)
 
Our lives belong to Him. Therefore, I must not take the credit or flagellate myself with the blame. Instead, I need to remind myself of how much He loves me:
 
·       but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. (Romans 5:8-10)
 
This logic is persuasive. If Jesus paid the ultimate price for us when we hated Him, how much more can we be confident of His love now that He has already suffered for us, and we have been eternally reconciled to Him!
 
Knowing the how much He loves me makes me giddy (Ephesians 3:19). Just remember how it was like for you when you found out that your love had been reciprocated by your beloved! It fills in the places of pain and emptiness. Showing the extent of His love for us had been the climax of all history. It was also the moment of Jesus’ greatest glory:
 
·       And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:23-24)
 
Jesus’ suffering had become the moment of His greatest glory. Why? The Cross proved His love for us greater than anything else could. (Credentialed historians all agree that Jesus had been crucified!)
 
Years before, I wasn’t able to shake the doubt that perhaps God might be a sadistic deceiver who had created us for His entertainment. However, it was the Cross alone that was finally able to convince me that He really loves me!
 
Love is the greatest power. Through love, mothers sacrifice their lives for their children, husbands for their wives, and soldiers for their countries. However, Jesus suffered for those who had hated Him.
 
Our sufferings and weaknesses are nothing compared to the joys of eternity, which our Lord is accomplishing in our lives:
 
·       So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
 
How then do we endure the decay of our utter self? By looking at the joy set before us, as Jesus had:
 
·       looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. (Hebrews 12:2-3)
 
I think that we are all prone to grow fainthearted as we struggle against our weaknesses and infirmities. This struggle is also humbling, but humility must precede our exaltation:
 
·       “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 14:11; 18:14; Matthew 23:12)
 
Paul had been humbled so that he would also be exalted. We all must go through this process, but how can we endure? By looking towards Jesus, our beloved Savior.

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