I Got This

"It's my life, I can do what I want.  I know what's best for me.  I got this!"  Does that sentiment sound familiar.  Maybe not in those exact words, but you know the sentiment.  Chances are you first expressed something along that line when you were a child, wanting to do something yourself without parental help.  I recently saw a YouTube video of a small girl trying to get her child seat strap fastened and when her Dad tried to help, she said, 'You just drive, I got this!"

Many a married couple winds up crashing their marriage on the rocks because one or both refuse to talk with a counselor because they don't need help, they can work it out themselves.  So often times workers on the job dig a bigger and bigger hole because their pride simply won't let them go to their supervisor or a more experienced employee and ask for help.

Who out there, besides me, has tackled a repair job that was beyond their abilities only to have to call in an expert to now fix the additional mess you've caused, instead of calling for help in the beginning?

Have you ever completed a project at home or work or school only to find out that what you had in mind was not even close to what was called for or being asked?  Not taking the time to seek instruction or clarification, you just go ahead and dig in thinking, "I got this," only to find out that this got you and now you have to do it over?  Yeah, I can hear you moaning.

In work, school and home projects we jump in attacking the problem or job with our own understanding, believing we got this, and its not pleasant.  But sadly, we too often approach our spiritual lives in the same manner, thinking we've got this worked out.  I remember a friend in the Air Force who didn't want to hear what the Bible said about his life choices because, as he said, "Me and God's got this worked out."  Actually, it was just him as he didn't bother to consult God's Word.

My friend, like so many others, decided, based on his own desires and feeling what God should  want and/or accept from him.  The truth was that while he was never in doubt about his theological conclusions, he was seldom correct.  He made the mistake of being self-determined,which leaves God out of the picture and paints a picture of destruction.

Listen to what the Bible so clearly warns, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight" (Pr 3:5-6).  Not to lean on God, preferring your own thinking leads, therefore, to crooked paths.  Solomon further warns, "Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil" (v. 7).

Apart from the revealed will of God, "you don't got this."  What you want the truth to be or decide the truth is, does not change the truth.  There is only one measure of truth and that is the revealed word of God.  Unless you let go and let God have control in your life, you don't got this for God has the whole wide world in his hands.  Remember the song from your childhood, "He's got the whole world, in his hands...?"  Yeah, he did then and he does now.

Don't think you've got this in your own thinking.  Don't be wise in your own eyes and blind to the real truth.  Look to God's word for direction, for as the Bible says, "Do you see a person wise in their own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for them" (Pr 26:12).  Jus' Say'n.