When you can’t change your circumstances, don’t let lies convince you that you're powerless. You can’t control your situation, but you can choose who you will be in the midst of it. What's a belief you will fight for? Put your stake in the ground and declare that this is your anthem.
A REMOTE CONTROL FOR LIFE
Don’t you wish sometimes that you had a remote control for life? When things are going too fast, you long to pause and catch your breath. When you make a mistake or a situation doesn’t go as expected, it would be so much easier if you could hit rewind and try again. When you have to wait, when you’re experiencing pain, or when you’re going through a difficult season- everything in you wants to fast-forward and skip to the redemption part of your story.
Unfortunately, circumstances usually aren't always under your control, and there isn't a remote to pause, fast-forward or rewind them. Most of the situations you find yourself in are a combination of a million little puzzle pieces that happened to come together without your direct intervention.
FEELING POWERLESS
When situations are out of your control, it can make you feel incredibly powerless. In a desperate cry to manage your life, you can find yourself working until you’re utterly exhausted, or living in manipulation or anxiety, just to grasp onto a small sense of control.
This often leaves you feeling disconnected from God. It can be hard to hear His voice when you’re trying to manage each detail of your life on your own. His Presence is most easily experienced with a surrendered heart. His voice is most easily heard by those who first whisper, “I trust you.”
SELF-CONTROL VS CONTROL
It’s not an evil desire to want to change your circumstances, this human tendency just needs to be redirected until it has a different focus. Pastor Danny Silk says that “we can’t control other people. On our best days, the only thing that we can control is ourselves.”
Self-control is one of the expressions of Love, and a fruit of the Spirit, according to Galatians 5. Self-control is more than trying not to sin or restraining an indulgence. Self-control means that you are living like the powerful person that you are. Self-control means choosing your beliefs, behavior and attitude, instead of reacting to a situation.
This is a grace-empowered attribute that you are called to live out. God would never ask you to do something without first giving you the ability to perform it. This means you are fully capable to live as a powerful and free person despite what happens to you!
CHOOSING BELIEFS
When you can’t control your circumstances, don’t let lies of control or a victim mentality convince you that you are powerless. You have been given the beautiful ability to choose what you believe! You can’t control other people or your situation, but you can decide who you will be in the midst of it.
Romans 12 says that you are transformed by the renewing of your mind. You are called and divinely empowered to have beliefs that reflect God’s truth about yourself, your situation and His capability to turn things around. Pastor Steve Backlund says it like this: “your beliefs about a problem are a bigger problem than the problem itself.”
STAND YOUR GROUND
So what are you choosing to believe? What is one belief you will decide to fight for today? Put your stake in the ground and declare that this is who you choose to be, regardless of your circumstances.
Lies are constantly trying to convince you that you aren’t enough, that your situation is hopeless, that God won’t do what He promised, that your worst-case scenarios will come true, that your life is beyond repair. You can’t stop these lies from coming at you, but you can make the powerful decision to partner with truth.
As you remind yourself of how God thinks about you and your situation, you will find that any other voice is drowned out. Lies can’t exist in the presence of truth, just like the darkness has to flee as soon as the light is switched on.
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Written by Eline Millenaar