I Thought I was Large and In Charge

Early in my faith walk I played the “I’M BOSS” role and lived out that “large and in charge” persona. If they gave medals for playing the “I’m Boss” game, mine would be solid gold. Even though there is not one good thing about that memory, God is using it for good in my life and ministry. Here’s the story…
  
We actually start playing boss as children, always wanting something and eventually wanting everything. We have all seen and heard kids walk around the house saying, “Mine, mine, mine” and “I want it now!” This me-centered perspective is particularly evident today in the face of 21^stCentury relativism, where everything is okay so long as someone says it’s okay and “no one gets hurt.”
  
It’s a farce. And it’s sad.
  
But adults are no different. That was certainly the case for me earlier in my life as a stressed-out CEO chasing a 500-Horse-power sports car because the one I had only took 410 horses out of the barn and onto the street. What a joke.
  
THE HAPPINESS MYTH
  
Playing boss often comes from a selfish attempt to control our circumstances while chasing a mythical form of happiness. It’s the “when I have thus and such, then I will be happy” syndrome. But if we’re not happy now, we won’t be happy later.
  
Acting as the boss of our life is a selfish attempt to control things by exercising our own power. But there’s more to it than selfishness; it is really a misplaced focus on an idealized sense of happiness at a destination point down the road. It is the “when I have thus and such, then I will be happy” syndrome that comes from trying to be in control of our lives. The problem is that it never happens. If we are not happy now, we won’t be happy later.
  
We can’t have it both ways.  If we are going to play boss and rule our own lives, we will not be in a position to yield our life to God. It’s that simple. Those two avenues lead in opposite directions because they are incompatible…
  
Doing our own thing ignores God’s wise principles of living. Playing boss leaves us vulnerable to collisions with sin and the disruption of our relationship with God. We then drift farther and farther away from knowing God and finding his peace.
  
I learned the hard way that playing boss was isolating me from any chance of connecting with God, let alone yielding my life to him in full surrender. I learned that playing boss shuts off God’s wisdom fountain. And I learned that playing boss opens us up to collisions with sin and the disruption of our relationship with God.
  
Oh yeah, I learned one more thing—God wants us to stop thinking we are large and in charge.
  
“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18