Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
— Proverbs 3:5–6
There is something in most of us that loves control. We want the steering wheel, we want the remote control, we want the keyboard, and we want the checkbook. We like to be in control. And this is extra true when it comes to managing the biggest areas of life. We like to figure out ways that we can make decisions that control the outcomes.
The problem with this is that you and I were never meant to be in control. We were not designed with that kind of bandwidth. The reality is that we were designed to trust God to be in control, not to be in control ourselves.
The proverb writer warns us of this in Proverbs 3. He tells us that we are to submit all of our lives to the Lord. We are to trust him completely with all of our lives. To go a step further, he tells us not to “lean” or trust in what we understand. In other words, we are not meant to be in control. We are meant to be in submission.
I love leadership. I love books about leadership, and conferences about leadership, and talks about leadership. I think the importance of leadership can not be overstated. However, despite my love of leadership, I have spent most of my life trying to learn how to follow. Our first calling is not to be in control, but to be in submission. We are to submit every part of our lives to our Heavenly Father daily, who in turn promises that when we do that he will make our paths straight.
Today, why don’t you practice giving up control. Why don’t you put your full trust in God.
He’s better at control anyway!