Unforgiveness? Okay, what’s your “batting average”? For all of you who have never played baseball, nor collected baseball cards as a kid, nor even like to watch…the official definition of a batting average is, “the average performance of a batter, expressed as a ratio of a batter's safe hits per official times at bat.” Yes, I hear you, “What part of I never played baseball, nor ever watch…did you not understand?” Simply put: a “batting average” is a “number” based on the amount of times a player comes up to bat, gets a hit, and then gets on base. Now if you don’t know what I am talking about when I say, “comes to bat, get’s a hit, or gets on base”…don’t frustrate yourself ! …And just forget the illustration!

How well you you think you do with “forgiveness”? Is it a struggle? Have anything you think you have never recovered from? And as a result…never forgiven? …Forgiveness? How often do you think you get on the “base of forgiveness” - after being hit with some unkind action, or words (spoken to you, or behind your back) by others that you never saw coming? Again. Is forgiveness a struggle?

Ever wondered why God does everything He can…TO GET YOU TO FORGIVE?

I want to talk about something I have struggled with for many years now. That has always left a pillar of salt to mark the failures in my own relationship with God. And even been something that I personally have gone back and forth on what I believe theologically for decades.

I want to talk about the nature of control.

Not so much about who controls us, or how we are controlled, or how we control others. But most of all I want to talk about the idea of God controlling you.

Now why is this topic so important? Because of all the topics we might choose to consider – this one – more than any other – I CAN PROMISE YOU is going to determine how your life turns out!

Now let me start this analysis on the issue of control by asking a simple question. Ever gone through some difficult time in your life…where you were desperate - and really needed, and maybe even pleaded for God’s help - but in the end, if you are completely honest…it just didn’t seem like God came through for you?

Now why do we all…

As humans we most often place our emotional expectations in people, goals, careers, accomplishments, possessions, or the attainment of wealth. Deceptively believing they will fill the hollowness of unlove.

But remarkably, in our quest rarely do we pick God as our PRIMARY source. Odd because of all we might choose – He should of all options be our greatest possibility for success! …At least, to those of us who believe He exists.

But instead, most often we merely make Him the provider of our “God substitutes”. …The source of secondary choices.

What a difficult world you live in. The pace of life is out of control. Too much to do, too much to remember. So many responsibilities, so many demands, someone always expecting something from you.

…And doesn’t it often seem as if someone is always upset with you over some unmet expectation?

Yes, it’s true, technology has made life easier. Yet Matthew McConaughey in the 1997 movie CONTACT revealed the effect of this technological advancement in our lives clearly, “We shop at home, surf the web, (text rather than talk). But at the same time we feel emptier, lonelier, and more cut off from each other than at any other time in human history”.