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About a year ago I attended a service at Southland where my minister gave a talk about removing yourself from the outcome.  “Do everything you can, do your best, and then trust that God will control the outcome and it will be according to his plan.”

There is a verse in Matthew that has stuck with me since I was a kid.  Matthew 6:33: “Seek first the Kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you.”

I find this is an incredibly challenging.  As someone who is extremely competitive and very result oriented, I am rarely at peace when I don’t achieve the outcome I have in mind.  I beat myself up when I lose a co-ed indoor soccer game.  When my company loses a sale to a competitor, I can’t help but to analyze what went wrong.  When the soccer team I coach loses a game, it can ruin my week.

So how can someone as competitive as myself be content with removing myself with the outcome.  Well, the verse doesn’t say, “Don’t worry about trying hard.  Actually, don’t try at all.  The outcome is already decided and all you need will be given to you.”

You still need to do everything within your power to prepare, perform your best when given the opportunity, and take advantage of every chance you get.  The purpose of removing yourself from the outcome is to place your trust in something bigger than you and know that you really don’t have that much control in the grand scheme of things.

I haven’t perfected this.  I may never have it all the way figured out.  However, on the rare occasion when I am able to remove myself from the outcome and simply trust that my best will be enough, I feel much more at peace with whatever outcome arrives.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2012 at 4:57 am and is filed under Personal Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.