There is almost no feeling worse than the feeling that a situation with major implications is completely out of your control.
I spent the entire day feeling desperate, depressed and completely incapable of turning my situation around. If I’d had the power to fix it, I would have days ago. But the ultimate decision didn’t rest with me, it rested with people who had the absolute last word.
And they knew it.
I knew it.
I had no leverage at all, and absolutely no means to influence their decision. It was final.
The longer the day dragged on, the more frantic I became.
My initial response was to turn to the one thing I felt I could control: work.
I began to bury myself in needless deadlines and senseless responsibilities that kept me busy and not thinking about the 10-ton elephant sitting on my chest.
Isn’t it interesting that we’re so ready to tell others, “When Jesus is all you have, Jesus is all you need”; and yet when we’re in a desperate situation, we turn to anything but Jesus?
We drown ourselves in work, TV, a good book—anything that will distract, but not actually resolve the pressure we feel.
It’s as though someone’s amputated our leg and we somehow think an Asprin will help deal with the pain!
As the clock spun by, I looked at my to-do list that seemed to grow with every tick-tock, and slowly it began to dawn on me that I had made a huge mistake.
I grabbed a sheet of paper, reworked my deadlines so that they could easily be met throughout the next week, put the computer away and between prayers for the Lord’s help, I began to entertain my kids by singing with them worship songs to Jesus.
The next day, I woke up in a considerably different mood, and I realized I needed to do these four things:
4 Ways to Respond When You’re Out of Control
1. Admit that you’re not in control. This is such a crucial step. Many times when we’re not in control of our situation or it’s outcome, we still like to pretend we are. We don’t want to admit that we’re not in control because we feel that our lack of control reflects badly on us.
