Remote Control

Remote Control

January 8, 2005

My four-year-old niece Maria twirls around the kitchen singing her favorite Bible song, “The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, fidelity, tolerance, and remote control.”   

“Remote-control” I chuckle.  Wouldn’t that be great?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if God would run our lives just by putting His finger on the button of His remote control?  How easy it would be. 

Zap! He would rewind my life and stop me from making that stupid error last week at work.

Zap! He could fast-forward me past temptations and paths leading me away from His purpose. 

And the best key of all: Mute. Just one little tap of that key and my whole life would be changed. No more repeating gossip. No more little slips of the tongue that hurt others or little white lies that lead to great big fibs in the future. 

Unfortunately, little Maria got that last fruit wrong. God doesn’t set us straight with His celestial remote control. He doesn’t control our actions with one push of a button. No, that last fruit is that old bugaboo -- self-control. God expects us to reap that fruit ourselves. 

We must control ourselves, and we all know how difficult that can be. Think of all those donuts we have almost passed up on our last diet or the many times we held our tongues when we got hold of some really juicy gossip. Self-control is tough.   

But God doesn’t leave us helpless. He is waiting for us to remember that, ultimately; He is in control of our lives. When we give Him full control, self-control becomes a lot easier. So, even without an omnipotent remote control running our lives, we can reap the fruit of the Spirit.  

And then, like Maria, we can dance.