Let go of the controls

A young female pilot was making a training flight.  Since she always seemed to panic during engine stalls, her instructor asked her to attempt another stall recovery.  Determined to get it right this time, she cut the engines.  

The next thing she knew, her Cessna 150 was hurling toward earth in a twisting, wing-over-wing spin. As she wrestled with the controls, she remembered her instructor’s words, “If you ever get into a spin in a Cessna 150, just let go of the controls.  It’s built to pull out of a spin on its own.”  

Yet she was still fighting the controls with all her strength and wouldn’t let go of her hands.  In desperation, she shouted to herself, “Let go!” but her hands still clutched the controls.  Calling on God and using every ounce of willpower, she finally threw her hands up in the air and held them there.  

After some wild yawing and pitching, the aircraft straightened out and returned to level flight.  She had fallen nearly half a mile, but she was safe—because she had let go.

Just as the pilot recovered from the tailspin, God is always in control, even when things seem to be spinning out of control.  The trials and tribulations of life are many. People universally face disappointment, rejection, sorrow, grief, and frustration.

A young man I knew received the dreaded pink slip. His company was downsizing, and he got caught in a reduction-in-force.  He was crushed, despondent, and didn’t know which way to turn.  

I advised him to aggressively seek reemployment with other companies with all the resources he could muster.  I also cautioned him that he would surely hit brick walls along the way, but when that happened, to turn everything over to God, for only He could move them. I further stressed that he seek God’s will, for God had a good and perfect plan for his life.

When we go through difficult times in our lives, we, too, need to let go of the controls.  As the old saying goes, we need to “let go and let God.”  That’s exactly what God said through the Psalmist in verse 46:10:  “Be still and know that I am God.”  

In this passage, God is urging us to cease striving on our own, to trust Him in difficult situations, to let go, and to let Him handle things.  We can do that with assurance because Psalm 46:1 declares:  “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble.”

Jesus knew that John would face martyrdom and need a special grace when it occurred. The Master told John,  “Truly, truly, I say to you when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go.”  

Jesus then said to John, “Follow me.” There will be times in life when we must travel a path we would rather not take.  It is then that we must turn to Jesus and follow him.