“God is Still in Control” || Release What You’re Not in Control Of || Week 7 (FINALE)

Welcome to the series finale of “Release What You’re Not In Control Of”. I’ve been super happy writing this series. A little behind the scenes here, I’ve written this all before the first week’s release so I have no idea what your response to this would be, but this has been a super fulfilling journey to write this. So thank you for giving me this opportunity.

If you’re new to this series, I really want you to go back to the previous six weeks because this is going to be very different than what the best six weeks have talked about. This series has been about how, through Scripture and my personal testimony, we can work on our control issues. This week’s messages tells us all about how God is still in control. We have three different scriptures this week to help make up for such a short message last week, but all will talk about how God is still in control of all things. This series has been written during the COVID-19 pandemic, so my own control is pretty much gone. We’re still seeing God in control through. So let’s jump into it. Today’s message is called; “God is Still in Control.”

Our first scripture is Isaiah 41:10 which says: “Don’t worry – I am with you. Don’t be afraid – I am your God. I will make you strong and help you. I will support you with my right hand that brings victory.” Isaiah is telling Israel not to fear from God’s destructive judgment, as the rest of the nations do because he is their God and faithful promise to restore the nation. We can learn a lot from this.

Put this in today’s context. Don’t worry so much because God is with us. I’ve heard worry is about a lack of trust in what God can do. I have some belief in that. We worry about what the world is coming to, but we need to trust God will manage the world. All we should worry about is managing ourselves and let God take care of the rest. Let us not be afraid because God is an awesome God. He will make us strong, even when we feel weak. We need to hear that sometimes. It’s okay to feel weak sometimes. That no matter how strong you think you need to be, whether it’s being strong for our family because everyone is panicking over the pandemic, or being strong for our significant other because there’s separation due to social distancing, or being strong for our children because we don’t want to let them worry. I see this in me being strong for my youth because I want our meetings to be a spot of respite and positivity away from all the drama in the outside world. It’s hard sometimes. When you bothered with stress, anxiety, depression, and other things, the last thing you feel is strong, but that’s where God comes in. God will make us strong. God will help us. God will support us with our right hand and we will be victorious in the end. God is in control.

Our second scripture is Psalm 94:10 which says: “I was very worried and upset, but you comforted me and made me happy!” In Psalm 94, the focus is on the concern that the righteous are being oppressed, the wicked are winning, and it doesn’t look like God cares for them. This verse comes from talking about reprimanding the foolish.

There’s a part of this that is recognized is in today’s culture. This of what the psalmist said in today’s time. “I was worried and very upset…” Doesn’t that sound like us in mid-March to mid-April, and some of us to today. We’re worried about the coronavirus in what it is, how it spreads, how it affects us, how we cure it, and what it’s done to the economy. People have lost jobs, lost businesses; have strained relationships with friends and family because of social distancing; have gone crazy from the lack of control of what we once knew, and many other things. You can insert your own worry here. We’ve gotten very good at worrying and being very upset, but there’s a comfort we can find in God. God has been able to keep some of us healthy, to keep some of us employed, to keep some of us mentally stable, which is good nonetheless. God has also watched over all the doctors, nurses, hospital staff, and other frontline and essential workers to not only work on healing us, but God has protected them from catching the disease and other illnesses. God has loved those who have lost loved ones during this time, sharing in the grief, sadness, and loss with them. God has sent His peace to them to try and make the best of it all. I’m hoping I’m not crossing a line here. All I’m saying is that God has still shown He’s good and is in control throughout the entire pandemic in a wide variety of ways.

Our last scripture comes from Proverbs 19:21 which says: “People might make many plans, but what the Lord says in what will happen.” Human responsibility is always subject to God’s absolute power. What a powerful sentence.

How many of us in January saw this as of today? Probably none of us. The 20/20 vision that we all meme’d about was not clear at all. We had all these plans that never came to fruition. These are the plans that we have missed/adapted during this time: Easter Craft Day, Spring-Break Lock-In, Easter Breakfast, Volunteer Day, Graduation Sunday and that’s just the immediate youth functions. That’s not including our regular Youth meetings, Wednesday Night Live, and Sunday School. That’s definitely not including all the church functions. There’s so much we missed that I hope to make up whenever we can get back to the new normal. I had so many plans…that were swept out from underneath me. That sent me into such intense grief, depression, and anxiety spiral until I got out of my head and back into things.

I’m not saying that God caused the pandemic, but God caused one major thing for me. To slow down. I was running a mile a minute most days to try and accomplish everything I wanted. Personal projects were being put to the side so that I can focus on work stuff. I was so mentally exhausted almost daily, dealing with some personal issues that I don’t want to talk about. It was draining me, and then to have it gone, took away the one thing I knew. It took away the chaos of everyday life to slow me down and do nothing. Since then though, God has taught me a lot about myself. I definitely don’t feel like I’m the same person I was before all this. My prayer life has strengthened. My spiritual life has strengthened. I’m taking care of myself WAY better. I’ve been kinder to myself. I’ve lowered the unreachable standards I set on myself. God slowed me down to recognize how bad I was destroying myself. God has been so good to me during this time so that I can just be a better servant for Him. Obviously, I can’t pour from an empty cup, so I learned how to refill my glass. I’m still learning though. I’m not saying this to show-off. I’m saying this to say that God was still in control even though I wasn’t anymore…and that’s okay. I’m okay with not wanting that control anymore. I don’t want it. It’s Way above my pay grade. I’ll let God do the controlling, and that includes controlling me. Controlling my thoughts, my actions, my desires, and more. God is still in control.

Thank you all so much for checking out this series. I don’t have a third one in mind yet, so if you have something that you would like me to talk about. Otherwise, stay tuned for whatever comes next. Stay blessed.