The Illusion of Control

“Then Job replied to the LORD:
             I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.” Job 42:1-2

Truth. You just have to love it. Knowing that God is in control of all things no matter what sets my soul at ease. No attempt of man can ever cause His purposes to be altered. God alone is sovereign, completely in control of all things.

So, doesn’t that make you stop and wonder why it is that we desperately seek to maintain control of our lives? It does seem that our attempts are in vain, does it not? If there is nothing that can thwart God’s plans, if He controls the outcome of all things, if He is God and we are not, then human control is somewhat of an illusion, isn’t it? I have spent countless hours, days, months, even years trying to control my life and the lives of those around me only to find that I cannot. Anybody else out there know exactly what I’m talking about? We exhaust ourselves striving to maintain control, refusing to allow the ball to drop, tightly gripping the things we love and despite our many efforts, we simply cannot change the plans that God has in store. And if anyone knew this to be true, it certainly had to be Job – the righteous, godly man of the Old Testament that God allowed Satan to sift like wheat. By the time the enemy was done wreaking havoc on his life, all but the breath in his lungs had been taken from him. After Job in his distress questions the Lord, wondering why God would allow all of this to happen to him, and after Job receives the Lord’s “answer” to his questions, Job responds with the above verse. Wow! Can you imagine? Job finally understood that control belongs to the Lord, not to us.

We think we are in control of many things…our families, our spouse, our jobs, our days, our plans…until it all comes crashing down. Then we have this tendency to blame God for causing our plans to fail when in reality, we were never in control in the first place. A far better plan would be to relinquish said control to the Lord and to trust Him to order our days. Control is an illusion, something that perhaps many of us are bound to because letting go and trusting God seems far too difficult to imagine. I for one would rather surrender to the Almighty God whose ways and thoughts are high above mine and are far better than my own (Isaiah 55:8-9) before the illusion of control is stripped from me. Walking in surrender to His ways allows us to trust Him even when things don’t go as we planned because in those times, we are certain that because He is in control and because He’s good, He’s in charge of working it out for our good and for His glory (Romans 8:28). The burden isn’t ours. Don’t allow the illusion of control to fool you any longer. Rest in His sovereignty. Our God who created the Heavens and the Earth knows best how to rule over them.