Taken from - http://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/homeword/
This devotional was written by Jim Burns
What good is it for man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? — Mark 8:36
When it comes to our life, we have nothing to say about our birth and little say about our death, but in between these two events most of the decisions are ours to be made. Are you letting life and circumstances control you, or are you controlling your own life and destiny with God’s help. Don't let life pass you by when you have the God-given ability to make things happen. I've heard it said:
You can't control the length of your life, but you can control its use.
You can't control your facial appearance, but you can control its expression.
You can't control the weather, but you can control the moral atmosphere that surrounds you.
You can't control the distance of your head above the ground, but you can control the height of the contents in your head.
You can't control the other fellow's annoying faults, but you can see to it that you do not develop similar faults.
Why worry about things you cannot control? Get busy controlling the things that depend on you.
10 comments:
Pretty tough sometimes to turn the focus inwards. Much easier to sit around and harp at LRT all day for not blogging yet :o) Honestly, probably the toughest for me is non-varbal communication. Controlling my facial expressions especially to my wife. Something to focus on for sure
cas
I hear ya, cas! I can control my tongue, but my expression indicts me all the time.
tba
Straight and to the point. If I worried less about the things I can't control, I would have more time to devote to my christian walk. I agree with CAS about facial expressions ... they often speak louder than my voice.
LRT
Yeah, I've got two go-to frustrated expressions that just about slay my wife, generally caused by stress, and an indicator that I want to be anywhere but there at that moment.
One of my biggest frustrations that I cannot control (I know cas has heard this before, and some of you might have similar experiences) is the environment in which I work is very communal/communistic, where everyone has a responsibility (or 5). Many, many days, I feel like I turn around and want to use instrument X or get Y from the shelf, and its never as its supposed to be. At the same time, I've spent the first half of my day fixing my responsibility that someone else trashed. I get so mad that people can't take care of their responsibilties, and I've tried confronting in good and bad ways, etc, and nothing has ever worked. Fixing my response to this is constantly in my prayers.
Anyway, I guess Jim's point is not to worry about the other folks, but its hard when it really slows you down/messes you up.
Father, help me to conform to your will and do the things you want me to.
crb
control is a big challenge for me. i lean towards trying to control everything. i think that is the ambition in me and trying to be proactive. but at times it goes too far. i am working on the concept of trust, trusting God will direct and guide my life even if it leads me into not so green pastuers.
i think it is human nature to want to take control and "fix" things so you can control the outcome. I certainly struggle with it as well. pray pray pray, right
and pray some more!
The one thing I've learned is 'what do I gain by controlling the situation'? In fact, some situations shouldn't even be controlled but we do it anyway. Other situations absolutely need us to step in and take control.
I one thing I have been trying to work on is control my thoughts. Try to take the other person into consideration. As the saying goes, no man is free who cannot control himself. somewhere someone determined that 90% of the things we worry about we can't control so why worry about it?
Life and the pace I choose to live it can certainly take control of you. Normally it does not, but lately there has been a lot of stress which I would say has done a good job of controlling me.
HOWEVER, God has had some major victories in my life by turning messes into masterpieces. Nothing was clearer than the spiritual attack and nothing was clearer than God's ability work together for the good of those who love him.
I don't deserve it, but he continually blesses, guards and guides.
This is probably too little too late, but this is so appropriate. I cant change the fact that I'm getting older and crankier but I can rely on Christ to help me with being patient with my kids when they drive me crazy arguing about the smallest things
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