Gimme the Remote

If you watch television with any person or group, somebody will hold the remote control. That person determines whether you watch football, a Hallmark movie, the news, or the weather channel. They can blast the volume, or mute the sound. They can change channels on a whim. Unless there is “pre-watch” agreement on these critical issues, frustration can blossom into a terse “Gimme the remote!” (threats or physical violence have been known to be a part of the negotiation)

I think it’s innate. We want to control things. It showed up on the playground when someone yelled “You’re not the boss of me!!” We don’t want to be controlled by others, but conversely, we like to be in control. 

The fact is, there are quite a number of things within our range of control. At creation, God said “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion (control) over… every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:26-28). The New Testament commands us to be self-controlled. We are to control our attitudes, our anger, our thoughts, our speech, our actions, and on it goes. The problem comes when we try to grab the remote, and control things we were not intended to. Things like public opinion, the weather, or even gender.  

Ever since Adam and Eve took the remote, and went their own way, there has been control trouble. It seems like most of humanity struggles with the things we ought to control, while at the same time trying to influence things outside of our range of control. 

A passage I love is found in Ecclesiastes 7:13-14. It says 

“Consider the work of God; for who can make straight what He has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: Surely God has appointed the one as well as the other, so that man can find out nothing that will come after him.”

God, the ultimate Sovereign, has given us limited sovereignty. He has put curves and bends into our lives, outside of our control, and often not on our wish list. That keeps us from seeing too far ahead, so that we might live dependently on Him, rather than striving to control the things that are His to control. Try this: Deliberately hand over the remote to someone else this week, and find out where you rank on the “Chilled out – to – Control Freak” continuum. Could be fun. Could be revealing. Ask Him for clarity, and for clear balance between what is ours, and what is His to control, and keep learning to trust Him.

‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take Him at His word,

Just to rest upon His promise, just to know, “Thus saith the Lord.”