Controlling Outcomes

“I do believe that when we face challenges in life that are far beyond our own power, it’s an opportunity to build on our faith, inner strength, and courage. I’ve learned that how we face challenges plays a big role in the outcome of them.”
—Sasha Azevedo

Rarely in the journey of life do we absolutely peg the outcome of particular paths and challenges that we face. We may desire things to turn out in one way and have the opposite happen, or things might turn out much better than we could have ever imagined they would.

Often when we are in the midst of something big in our lives we start projecting; thinking thoughts about the future. “What ifs” can drive us crazy if we allow ourselves to get out into tomorrow. We can start obsessing about the craziest things that might happen.

What does happen when we so desperately want to know the outcome is that we miss the journey. And as is often said, “It’s the journey, not the destination.” There’s a whole lot of life going on right this moment that we are absolutely going to miss out on if we are fretting about tomorrow, next week, next year, or our whole lifetime.

Turning the outcome of a thing over to our Higher Power helps us to let go of it and enjoy the moment. We really can’t control outcomes much. We can put our energy into something and give it our all, but we don’t have the final say in what will happen.

It’s very easy to get caught up in the “what ifs” and lose sight of the now. Usually the “what ifs” are not very pleasant because they are fear-based feelings. Turning the outcome over to God gives us more ability to let the “what ifs” go and turns our thinking into positive thoughts instead. And who knows, positive thinking might be better for the outcome than the negativity that comes with fearful “what ifs.”

Live the moment and leave the outcome to God.