Control

“I get the comics first!”

“I get them second…” followed by a louder,  “Third!” After which you were just out of luck and would undoubtedly get the comics whenever you got them. But as kids, we wouldn’t dare try to take the comics out of turn our there’d be trouble. The calling of the comics was routine in the Jackson household. Every Sunday morning, almost like clock-work. The only thing that differed really, was who thought of it first to “call them first. Those weekly Sunday morning shenanigans USUALLY were started by my dad “calling” the comics first. He was the biggest kid, after all. It was a similar thing with the television, at times. With one TV in the house though dad usually had the say on what we watched. Of course, there wasn’t a plethora of viewing choices like there are today. Three channels was really all we had and that was via antenna and on a really, really good day, with no wind with the aluminum foil positioned just right on the rabbit ears. Every once in a while, however, we just might be able to get a fourth channel. Yep, there were those handful of times that we could just make out the song playing between the static noise on the jute box video station that we wouldn’t be allowed to watch if we had it, but we tried hard.

Control. We all clamber for it. Whether it’s the Sunday morning comics, TV, or now the remote control, we all want it. We want control of our lives and yes (raising my guilty hand) control of others because they also determine our happiness, or so we think. For many of us, me included, we live thinking that we are somehow in control, but we’re not. We’re not actually in control of anything but our choices between right and wrong, our attitude and how we feel about ourself.

In today’s culture, we are sucked into what we think should happen in politics, office situations, etc. We end friendships and block family members on Facebook over issues that none of us, at the end of the day, have any control over. Think about it. At this very moment, by gravity, we’re being held down to a ball of matter weighing 13,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,

000 pounds, spinning at 1,037 mph in the middle of outer space.One slight jar to the axis of the Earth and life as we know it, over. Ok, ok, I think I made my point, we clamber at control and we have very little control, period.

Four years ago today, I came face to face with the fact that I had no control or very little. There I sat in an 8 x 10 room, across from a man I’d never met before and he told me that I had cancer. An incurable cancer, at that. I had no control over that fact. There was no saying, “No I don’t,” walking out and moving on with my life-like the appointment never happened. What I did have control over is what I did with the information. I had choices: chemo or no chemo, transplant… When I was told that my life expectancy was 3-8 years, I had a choice with how I’d live my life from that point on. Was it with hope? Or was I going to just give up at the get-go? I chose to pray and trust God to help me make the right decisions.

Though you and I aren’t in control, there is One who is in control. He is the One that knows all about what’s happening in politics or the office situation. He’s the One that set the Earth on its axis and started it spinning at just the right speed and continues to. In fact, He put every star in the sky and bird in the air. He knew you, yes, YOU, even before the Earth was created. He’s the One that knew about the diagnosis long before the doctor’s appointment was ever made.

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If you don’t know Him, but want to, just say this simple prayer: “Dear Jesus, Thank you for dying on the cross for my sin. Please forgive me. Come into my life. I receive You as my Lord and Savior. Now, help me to live for you the rest of this life. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.”

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