Control

Being out of control can be downright frustrating, especially if you are accustomed to being in control over the significant areas of your life. My wife’s current bout with cancer, her subsequent surgery and the possibility of yet another round of chemotherapy has raised the control issue. In many ways, this experience is a walk in the park of the unknown. Don’t get me wrong. We have a wonderful team of professionals, many of whom are personal friends as well as top professionals in their field. But no matter how we laymen approach it, huge, life altering decisions are sometimes made on the basis of verdicts rendered by people we’ve often never met, sitting in labs we’ve never visited, looking through microscopes we don’t understand. Throw in the ominous sense of urgency, add a dash of trepidation—well, you get the picture. Mr. “In Control” is out of control, and that bothers me.

The apostle Paul is bound to have had similar  feelings when he faced his own thorn in the flesh. He was at home on land and on sea, in synagogue, temple, or house church, in or out of jail, in palace or in prison—but that thorn in the flesh was not only painful, it was perplexing. So, as any of us would do, he implored the Lord…three times! But to no avail. God did not give him the healing he desired, but He did give him the help he needed (see 2 Cor 12: 7-10).

Paul’s experience gives rise to the following observations:

There are some things in your life over which you have no control. You have no control over your heritage, your past, the genetics that distinguish you from all other people on the globe, the inexorable passing of time—just to name a few. Paul had no control over what he called his “thorn in the flesh.” Nor could Paul, by the most intense praying, get God to step in and do what Paul wanted with the thorn in the flesh. Paul’s example encourages us not to simply roll over and play dead when difficulties come along. But his dilemma does remind us that though we might consider ourselves the captain of our ship, there will ultimately come a moment when our ship meets God’s storm.

There are other things, however, over which you do have control. You can control your response to difficulties, your attitudes, your future approach to the challenges you will face, and whether, like Paul, you will turn to the Lord in the storms of life. In the ultimate sense anyone who believes in the sovereignty of God will never be a victim of anything except his own faithless choices.

The proper response on our part is to simply trust God in both instances. The result of such trust, as Paul discovered, is that God will reveal Himself through our weaknesses and we become recipients of His power. In the end, when approached by faith, what is out of our control is simply transferred to His control. Or, as Paul might say, I am well content with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong (v 10).

One of my mentors (E.F. “Preacher” Hallock, of Norman, Oklahoma) was fond of saying “God is running this show, and I get a kick out of telling people that.”

I pray I’ll get to that place as well.

Rejoice evermore!

Tom Elliff

2 Tim 1: 12

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