It starts with you.

It's easy to point at what's wrong with others.

Lost your temper? They caused you to lose your cool.

A conversation with your wife went south? Because of her and not you, right?

Your career is going no where? Not your fault. It's your [insert your latest person to attack here].

You get the point.

The God-given gift of human life is filled with uncertainty. There's plenty of things out of our control. We had no control over the family we were born into or the country we were born in. Plenty of situations are out of our control.

This thought can leave you full of dread. It can foster a life of practiced apathy.

But it can also fill you with hope.

Let's start by redefining control.

When I was younger I had a lot of problems with uncertainty. I would try to control every variable. I would suffer from analysis paralysis because I would invest so much time in thinking about all the possible variables of a given choice.

Believing that there was only one right choice, I operated under the fallacy that one choice I made, no matter how simple, would have long lasting consequences.

Now, it is true that certain choices have ripple effects that can last for generations (another post for another time).

What I have come to realize of late is that it is equally true that...

Control is influence.

If we redefine control as our ability to influence the situations we actually have agency over then our vantage point begins to shift. When we put into practice this principle of seeing control as influence, we see our world - the lives, peoples, places, and causes that move us and shape us - through a more optimistic perspective. We being to live out how Andy Crouch, in his book Strong and Weak, defines authority - the capacity to bring about change.

You and I have far greater control (i.e., influence) over much of what happens to us with regard to moving forward in life. In 2021 YOU can choose to leave your desire to hold every variable in your life together in God's capable hands and trust that God is for you.

This frees you to make another choice.

You can choose to have influence (i.e., control) over your God-given story. You can choose to cultivate a life in God, more meaningful friendships, better finances, better health.

Because you are made in the image of God you can create with your words a new world (i.e., way of seeing) that shapes your life, your family's life, your community's life all for the better.

Because at the end of the day...

It starts with you.