![]() This discovery can be a devastating, humbling blow to the ego. We find ourselves enslaved, even addicted, to habits created and engraved on our character over years of practice. Perhaps the supreme irony is when we realize how little control we exercise over ourselves. Many parents have discovered that merely telling their children what they can or cannot do-accompanied by warnings of dire punishment-is not enough to control their behavior when the children find themselves under the pressure of a situation. Parents are often shocked by their children's behavior, especially of their teenagers, whom they thought they had trained well. It is sometimes surprising how little control we have over other people-even in our families, our own flesh-and-blood children we have reared from birth. Otherwise, we could find ourselves "beating our heads against a wall" and driving ourselves into the psychological imbalance of always seeing ourselves as victims. Some things in life we must learn to accept peacefully, yield to and work our way through. God does not require that we try to control what is beyond us or that we fret because they are beyond us. We must admit that there is far more over which we exercise no control than that which we do. ![]() As much as some would like, we cannot control the weather so that it will not rain on our parade. We cannot stop the tides from going in or out. No one has time any more to meditate on how to gain control over his life.Īre we also allowing ourselves to be swept along on the crest of this surging tide of worldliness? Perhaps this is why Satan has created such a system. These lifestyles are in a constant whirl and lived on the edge of disaster. His dominion is over all creation, but for the present time He has appointed Satan and his demons, the principalities and powers of this age, to rule over earth ( Ephesians 6:12).Īs we approach Christ's return, Satan has designed ways of life that are fast-paced, spiced by a complicated array of sense-appealing entertainments, fashions and gadgets, and filled with a confusing mix of educational, economic, religious and political systems. We are privileged to live when events-far beyond even nations to control and of vast importance to the outworking of God's purpose-are being maneuvered into position. ( Job 12:23-25)ĭoes a drunken man exhibit much control? No, but in this example, God is manipulating events and men are powerless, though they try to turn aside His plans (see Psalm 2). They grope in the dark without light, and He makes them stagger like a drunken man. He takes away the understanding of the chiefs of the people of the earth, and makes them wander in a pathless wilderness. He makes nations great, and destroys them He enlarges nations, and guides them. The apostle Paul teaches in Acts 17:26, "And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their habitation." Job agrees: A number of years ago, when it seemed that this world's major powers were careening pell-mell toward a nuclear showdown, we frequently heard the cry, "Stop the world, I want to get off!" Today, major economic crises have overrun several major nations, and like gigantic tidal waves they seem to be sweeping toward the shores of Western nations, which seem powerless to control their inexorable advance.Įvents are not really out of control because God is still on His throne. ![]() In our minds we are carried furiously along in their current, unable to conclude one event before another hammers away at us for attention. Have you ever lamented the fact that this world seems out of control? Partly because of rapid transportation and communication, events seem to occur so rapidly that they tumble one upon another.
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