It is amazing how many people won’t make a commitment to God because they don’t want anyone telling them what to do. They want to have control over their own life. They even think those that are walking with God need a crutch. They are afraid they would lose control if they asked God into their life. This is so ironic because if you look around, you see people controlled by all sorts of internal and external “stuff”. A few that come to mind are substance abuse, activities, people, emotions.
When we consider substance abuse, we see people that can’t function with whatever substance they have allowed to have control. There is alcohol, drugs, and tobacco. It is hard to imagine what kind of life this must be for them. They are missing the whole purpose and joy in life. They can’t function without it and they don’t function very well with it. Of course, they don’t see that. For some reason, they can’t see beyond themselves. They think what they do doesn’t affect those around them but while they are destroying themselves, they are hurting and sometimes destroying the very ones they should be loving.
We allow ourselves to sit in front of the TV, the computer, the games system, on our phone and listen and look at stuff that is doing us harm. We say it doesn’t affect us. I bet if we made a change, we would recognize the difference. The lives portrayed on TV is not reality. Most of what is viewed cannot benefit our life. The time we waste doing unproductive activities will do us no good. We use the excuse that we need to relax or escape for a time from the stresses of life. We need to take a good look at how much time is really needed for this and what type of material is being fed into our brains in order to escape.
Pornography has been noted for being more addictive than drugs and alcohol. The pornography that people allow into their life does so much more that people even realize. Marriage and homes are being broken and they can’t even see the cause. At its extreme, it will destroy one’s sex life when they believed it at one time was enhancing it. This is typical of Satan to entangle you in a lie. He invites you into something that you believe will help and then entangles you to where you see no way out and then it begins to destroy you.
We would probably not want to admit that other people control us. But how often do we explain our actions by telling someone what they did to us? How often do we allow what someone else did or said ruin our day or our mood? Why do we let individuals have that much power in our life?
This takes us to emotions. Some of our emotions come from the fact that we allow people to determine how we feel. We get into a state of mind and we don’t know how to change it. We turn to doctors and medication or just choose to wallow in the moment. We can choose to change how we feel.
We have a God that can overcome all of this for us. Yea, He wants control but who better to give it to? It is the only control that will bring us anything positive. If we need a crutch, God is willing to be that crutch. He is the only one that can hold us up during our healing and the only one that can bring complete healing. We are talking about a God that created the universe, the God that brought us into existence, the God that created us for a purpose. Where else can we get the most satisfaction?
This brings about another ironic point. When we give God complete control, that is when we really begin to feel like we actually have control of our life. Life becomes doable. We gain a joy that we never knew, a sense of being able to accomplish something, a purpose. We can now have a dream, a hope, a future. We now have something to feel good about. We will have more than we have ever hoped for or imagined could be possible.
For more reading, look at Addictions and Effects of Pornography