Why Are You Trying To Run God's Show?

Are you one of those people who think you know what's right and best for the church? Is it important to you that your ideas, your thoughts be heard at all times and that, if things don't go the way you want, it's alright to push until things are your way? Perhaps if a decision is made that you don't agree with, you're the kind of individual who gets extremely upset and may even attempt to bully the pastor or board members to effect change.

If this is you, you may have already quit reading. If this isn't you, I'm certain you know at least one person in your church who thinks this way, who attempts to control things. The people who feel they control the church, that everything should go through them, these are people who mistakenly feel the church is a social club of some sort, or so it may seem. My dad was once told by members of his church board that they called him to the church so he reported to them and, apparently, should do whatever they said to do regardless of whether or not it was the right thing spiritually or from a ministry perspective. He advised them that his call to that church came from God, not them. As he stated to me, ministry is a calling, not a job. Those board members did not last, by the way, and were replaced with members who recognized what they were trying to achieve was something great for God, not for them.

Now, I believe that most of the time when we see controlling individuals, we tend to write them off as just having annoying personalities or being difficult people we don't want to deal with. I believe we carry a certain amount of frustration with them and maybe even some anger from time to time as we see them causing problems, too. Given that this is a battle in every church, big or small, it seems to me a wise solution would be to get at the root cause of the problem and find out why these people are the way they are. After all, isn't part of our job as followers of Christ to encourage and assist fellow Christians as well as the lost? I think we're responsible to both, so let's consider something that might be useful here in order to think about a solution to this issue.

I believe that if someone is being a bully or difficult it is indicative of deeper issues they have personally. This could be any number of things, ranging from problems at home to an ego they need to feed (for some reason) to other relationship issues they happen to carry over into the church. I'm speaking about anybody in this situation, mind you, not just someone with influence like a board member or church elder. Think about it for a minute. When you are unhappy with some facet of your life, doesn't that naturally flow into other areas? My brother, who is a pastor, summed it up by saying, "A church boss is someone who's heart is partially in the right place but typically has many elements of their life in the wrong place."

I think that's not only the most likely reasoning behind a negative influence in the church, but also a great way of recognizing that this person is crying out for help through acting out. Interesting, isn't it? Don't we see children in this same way? What's to say that just because someone becomes an adult they don't still react in childish methods as a means of communication? And this is not a new thing, because people have been reacting this way and causing trouble in their churches by trying to intimidate as long as the church has existed. As such we can't look at our current societal acceptance of excuses and believe this is only a current issue in the church or only a recent problem.

So when I ask the question, "Why are you trying to run God's show?", I'm definitely speaking first and foremost about the problem children of our church boards and within our church, those who seek power for themselves above all else. But now I want to flip that just a bit and point it back at us by asking you a directed question. Why are YOU trying to run God's show in your own life?

Are you somehow under the impression that the God of the universe, the one who created this amazing world we live in, doesn't understand what you need and what your needs are? If you are a Christian, God is not just your Savior, He is your Provider as well. When you try to run the show without Him, you're effectively telling God, "I can do this on my own and I know best, not You."

You can say that if you like, but you'll be wrong. You can try to do things your own way, but you will fail. You can try to bully God into letting you go the way you want to go, and He may even let you do it for awhile, but eventually He will guide you back to the path He intends for you. Don't try to run His show. He wrote it. He produced it. He knows what's in store for the next Act. Be involved as He calls, but enjoy it as a player in His show and recognize His script is better than anything you could ever hope to write.