You have played this game before, right?
Of course you have and I have and if they gave medals for playing the “I’m Boss” game, mine would be solid gold.
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 21st Century 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.
Adults are no different from kids. We see it in people who think they will be happy if they can just get that new car. That was 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 to the street. What a joke.
Kids and adults alike have become paragons of individualism striving to satisfy every desire and know they can get what we want by screaming and insisting they need it or deserve it. We have all learned how to play boss to one degree or another and many people take it a step farther by approaching life as if it was “every man for himself.”
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. when we drive down the street of life. 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. If we decide to control our own lives, we will have to manage all of the confusion on our own. If we take the wiser road and release control to God, we will be blessed with wisdom, insight, and happy lives.
“My son, do not let wisdom and understanding out of your sight, preserve sound judgment and discretion; they will be life for you, an ornament to grace your neck.” Proverbs 3:21-22
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.
God tells us to stop thinking we are large and in charge. Remember…
“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18
