Psychologists often use the phrase “Locus of control” to refer to the things in life over
which you have control over. If you can control something, it is in your locus of control.
If you can’t control it, it is not in your locus of control.
Which locus is your focus?
Are you preoccupied with things that you have no control over? Or are you taking
control of what you can control and leaving the rest to God?
In Psalms 46:10 it says, “Be still and know that I am God.”
That verse was written many years ago. Scholars believe that these words where written
in response to a national calamity. At a time when people where afraid and terrified, God
says, “Be still and know that I am God.”
Notice those words: be still. In the original text, those words: Be still, actually mean:
“take your hands off.”
Isn’t that interesting? At a time of national calamity God says: Take your hands off.
What is he saying? I think he is saying: Can you control the national calamity? No. If
you can’t control it, why waste precious time worrying about it? Instead of worrying
about it, why don’t you pray about?
“Things go terribly wrong when we try and assume control of our lives and those around
us,” says Louie Giglio in his book I am not, but I know. “For one, we sentence ourselves
to a heavy load—we call it the weight of the world-that God never intended for us to
carry. Running our world is too much for us, no matter how hard we try. To try and be
God—something I find that I am really bad at---with out having the wisdom and power
of God is a ridiculous proposition, a daunting task. Attempting to orchestrate the world
around us, even for a day, leaves us stressed and spent.”
If you are stressed and spent, ask yourself, “Which locus is my focus?”