Out Of Control

(Posting two today, since JU wouldn't let me post articles yesterday. )

Genesis 11:1-9

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.  As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

They said to each other "Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly."  They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.  Then they said "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building.  The Lord said "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.  Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.  That is why it was called Babel--because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world.  From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Your child gets sick the morning you have an important meeting.  Your husband is called out of town the weekend you'd planned to clean out the storage area.  Your car breaks down on your way to pick up the carpool.  How do you respond when your carefully planned schedule goes out of control?

In Genesis 11, the survivors of the flood shared one language and, by cooperating together, began to build a tower to the heavens to "make a name for" themselves.  In their minds, they had life under control!  God's response?  He confused their language--not because God didn't want them to cooperate, but because God wanted to be God in their lives.

He wants to be God in our lives too.  When we start gripping the controls, dictating every detail of our days, we can expect God to have something to say about it.

We are to live lives that are, in a way, out of control.  Because only when we are OUT of control can God be IN control!