Losing Control (last in a series)

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. (Psalm 62:5)

For sixteen weeks I shared with you my thoughts about “losing control.” This week we hear from four Christian writers on this topic:

The Christian way is different: harder and easier. Christ says, “Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down… Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.”…

C. S. Lewis

The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self—all your wishes and precautions—to God. But it is far easier than what we are trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call “ourselves,” to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be “good.” We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way—centered on money or pleasure or ambition—and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly. And that is exactly what Christ warned us you could not do…

That is why the real problem of the Christian life Continue reading

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Losing Control (sixteenth in a series)

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. (Augustine of Hippo, quoted from his Confessions, circa 397 A.D.)

Sixteen weeks ago I began this series with the quote, above, from St. Augustine. As I wrote back then, a restless heart is one that is still trying to be in control; it is not surrendered fully to Jesus Christ. The effort to control the situations, events and even the people in our life will never result in restfulness. So, no matter how hard we try to make the restlessness go away, perhaps by working harder or longer, or by thinking through a problem just one more time, we still won’t find the peace for which we long. What is missing is the surrender of our will to Jesus, along with whatever project or problem we are trying to address or solve.

However, it may seem counter-intuitive to surrender the very thing for which we think we are responsible, such as our work, family or ministry. But trying to control something is not the same as being responsible. We are responsible when we lay everything before our Lord and allow him to equip and direct us, according to his purposes, not ours. This is the only way to find rest, as Jesus teaches us: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is  light.”  (Matthew 11:28-30)  A heart yoked to Jesus is one that is responsible, yet at rest.

Over the weeks I’ve written about the need to surrender our will, our virtues, our loved ones and our financial resources, but as I bring this series to a close, it is important to point out that even our thoughts, whether inane, profound or practical, should be yoked to Jesus. Since our relationship with Jesus is of such an intimate and intricate nature (John 14:23; Galatians 2:20) we should withhold nothing from him, inviting him to inhabit our mind in such a way Continue reading

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Losing Control (fifteenth in a series)

There are three conversions necessary: the conversion of the heart, mind, and the purse. (Martin Luther )

Two weeks ago, when I thought I’d be bringing this series to an end, I sensed the Lord directing me, instead, to write about two more aspects of losing control: surrendering our loved ones, which I wrote about last week, and this week’s topic – surrendering our financial resources. The word, possessions, could be used in place of the term “financial resources.” However, if we think of our financial resources as something we alone possess and control we will quickly run into spiritual trouble. If we’ve submitted to Jesus as Lord, he must also be Lord of anything of material value in our possession.

Yet we Christians have a way of excluding our financial resources when we surrender our lives to Jesus. I remember hearing a sermon about stewardship a while back where the preacher made an analogy between Charlemagne’s soldiers, who held their sword above their head when they were being baptized, and modern Christians who figuratively hold above their head their debit and credit cards. His point was that Continue reading

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