Let me start today with a post well off the beaten path.

I’ve been struggling lately, and I know some of you have because you’ve told me, with controlling things not in my control. It can get very frustrating. You know something has to give, but you can’t control what must.

Or, you know something is going to happen, but you cannot control the timing. You become impatient.

Whether it is job or family or elections or something else, frustration abounds because you either think you should be in control of something you are not, or you want something to happen, but cannot control time.

I understand. I have struggled with this. Heck, I am struggling with this. I get it.

Let me tell you what I know to be true.

I know there is a God with a plan. It’s not my plan. It is His plan. I don’t know it, though get occasional glimpses of His plan. That it is His plan and not my plan means I cannot control it. Therein lies the secret to overcoming the frustration. Understand you cannot control it. Letting go is hard, but letting go is necessary more often than either you or I might like.

Abraham and Sarah struggled for all those years then God blessed them with a son. But when Isaac had grown, God told Abraham to go up on the mountain and kill the son he had so long wanted. Abraham did not know God’s plan. No doubt he wanted to control what was happening. But he could not. And he did not. He let God control the matter to His perfect glory. He trusted that the Lord would deliver. Not only did God spare Isaac, but Jesus tells us Abraham, in his life, saw Christ’s day “and was glad.” Abraham got a glimpse of the master plan. He couldn’t control it, but he saw that it was there and, even more so, he trusted it was good.

“Be still and know that I am God,” the Bible tell us. How hard that is. More and more, though, I am finding it necessary to be still and know He is God. I don’t want to be still. My very life is a constant motion of bells, beeps, whistles, kids, appointments, phone calls, etc. It’s pretty damn hard for me to be still.

But still I must be. And so must you. Your impatience cannot be made patient unless you are still. I speak from personal experience. You cannot control what you do not control, but you can be still and know that God controls.

Friends, I realize this is an esoteric topic to start your Thursday. But I have friends demanding strategies for this, that, and the other, I have things I myself want to move forward and can’t, some of you have similar things in life and are frustrated, and all of us just need to stop.

We will not control those things God does not want us to control and we cannot be stopped from controlling those things he does want us to control. All things really do work for the good of those called according to His purpose so be still and know that He is God.

Honestly, I’d like to have it all figured out. I’d like to know the unknown, to know what’s ahead, and I’d love to feel in charge. What I do know is there are things I cannot control and things I cannot change, but off in the distance, on the horizon, I see the land we’re all headed toward.

Here we are strangers in a strange land, but we are headed home. And as we walk the path of life, we may think we are in control of some things and not in control of other things, but God Himself is in control of every single one of those things. So relax, be of good cheer, and be still.

None of us should let these things we cannot control, control us.