Handing Over Control to God

A Universal Truism

One universal truism about the nature of mankind is that men and women make very poor masters of our own lives. Without exception, we at some point fail and fall short of God’s expectation (Rom. 3:23). However, even knowing this, there is a strong temptation to be the master of our lives and to allow a “self”, which those in Christ have spiritually died to (Rom. 6), to once again be an influence over our decisions both great and small.

A Necessary Answer

The answer is to “hand over” such things to our true Master, God. Now, this is of course describing choices of consequence such as which job to take, where to live, how to raise our children, etc., instead of “paper or plastic” type decisions. Even so, once we have made that commitment and handed over such control to God through prayer, it is important to avoid certain traps:

“God would really want me to…”

This particular trap describes a fallacy created when seeing an opportunity that is appealing to our eyes (and from our physical perspective) we assume that God has the same perspective, ignoring the possible spiritual implications.

For example, a great job opportunity may create a better standard of living for your family, finer and nicer things, future career opportunities, etc. Such things are not inherently good or bad. However, would that opportunity lessen the time spent with that family, especially as a spiritual leader of the home? Does the greater material bounty create a possible danger of materialistic sin? To truly know if this is something God desires for us, we must look at it through the spiritual lens of His Word, not merely the physical lens of the world.

“There must be a ‘good’ and ‘bad’ path…”

This trap is a curious one because it comes from the assumption that in every decision there is an obvious “good” choice. This is not necessarily true. God does know the path we will take being Omniscient and removed from time, but that does not remove the choice on our part. It is very possible that in a given decision, both or even multiple “doors” can all lead to spiritually “good” directions for us, assuming we are walking in Christ.

However, when the “good” and “bad” paths are not obvious, there is a temptation to simply not choose and thereby not to move at all. God desires for us a path which provides spiritual growth in Christ and contentment; He does not desire for us to stagnate. If we trust in Him and can see such growth in differing choices, we simply must make a choice and follow what God has for us. If we trust in Him, He will see us through our lives and ultimately fulfill the promise of Heaven which is our hope!