Remote Control

I heard an interesting comment the other day. Especially in middle school, we talk a lot about making good decisions, or even just thinking about the decision before we make it. If I could get my students to do this, I swear I could alleviate half of our discipline issues.

The phrase I heard was, “Who is holding your remote control?” Are you letting someone else have control of you or do you have control of your own remote?

I really think this is an excellent analogy for my middle school students. However, as I continued to think about it, I decided to apply it one step further for my life.

In my family, having the remote is a large responsibility. You are responsible for muting the commercials and paying close enough attention to unmute the commercials when the show is back on. If you do not do a respected enough job, you get the remote control taken away from you. I hate having the remote taken away from me. I am stubborn enough to think that no one can do as good a job as I can. So that got me thinking:

Am I letting God have control of my remote? Or am I fighting him over who is controlling my life? Am I stubborn enough to think that I can do a better job than God?

Obviously, I do not think that, but am I making conscious decisions in my everyday life to relinquish my control to God. I’ve heard that general idea 1,284 times in my life, but I’ve never heard it phrased that way.

Who has control of your remote?