Do you need to learn how to let go of control? Do you lack trust in God? You may be struggling with underlying lifelong fears and a lack of faith in God’s personal love for you. If this is you, then today’s prayer is for you. Giving control to God isn’t easy, but it will release you from the burdens you now face that are causing you anxiety, depression, and inability to sleep.
Table of Contents
How to Let go of Control and Trust in God includes a series of reflections and prayers to help you learn how to let go of control and surrender to the will of God in your life. All the links below can be found on this page. This means that you can open this page in airplane mode with your mobile phone and click the links to the reflections and prayers you would like to pray without distraction. After each view click the “Back to Top” button to return to this table of contents.
How to Let go of Control
What do I fear?
You probably fear a lot of things. You fear the future; you fear what people think of you. Maybe you fear the consequences of bad choices.
Do you fear being humiliated? Chastised? Do you fear losing your job; your money; your family or friends? Are all your fears based on selfishness? Are they all focused on you? Do these fears arise from your narrow view of life and your limited perspective? Do they come from your desire to be safe and comfortable without suffering?
You may find yourself engaged in behaviors that cause a lot of pain solely because you have these fears and you cannot control them. It’s ironic how the more we try to control situations due to our fears the more out of control these situations become and the more damage we ultimately do.
God doesn’t want us to be afraid of suffering and our future. He wants to help us to let go of the things we can’t control. We need to give all our fear to God in a real, genuine, honest, and complete SURRENDER.
How to Let go of Control
Fear of God is a Gift of the Holy Spirit
What you need to start doing is replacing your selfish controlling fears with the fear of God. This is truly the only fear we ought to have. If you pray for this gift of the Holy Spirit, God will give it to you. It is yours by your baptism and it is strengthened in you by your confirmation. All you have to do is ask and you will receive it. God desires us to love Him and return His Love for love. We cannot love someone if we lack respect for them. This is most true with God. Now, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are infused in us. God pours them out into our cup. If your cup is riddled with sin and you are not in a state of sanctifying grace then your cup will have many holes and the grace that is poured will seep out and not dwell in your soul.
To have a fundamental shift in your life’s direction, you need the grace of God to continually pour out on your soul each day so that you can do His Will. If you have broken your relationship with God, then you need to first repair it in order to be ready to receive the continual daily grace of living in His Divine Will. You can do this by repenting of all known sins and asking for Him to reveal to you sins you have committed that need confessing in order to be in right relationship with Him. While you should examine your conscience right now in private prayer, understand that you will still need to make a valid sacramental confession as soon as possible, and also make amends to those you have sinned against. This is necessary for the graces you desire to come and for the transformation of your soul and your growth in sanctity.
Just take a minute right now, close your eyes, and contemplate the Majesty of God and how He ought to be respected by you and loved by you. Contemplate the ways you failed Him since your last reconciliation. Let yourself grieve what you have done to offend God and to reject His divine calling for your life.
How to Let go of Control
What does it Mean to Fear God?
To fear God is to dread committing sins that are offensive to Him. You refuse to commit an offense not because you will be punished for it or suffer a consequence, but because you know how much it pains His Sacred Heart. Fear of God is having a loving respect for Him. This gift of the Holy Spirit stops you from being evil, because your conscience won’t allow you to sin against God and offend Him. When you do sin, immediately you feel remorse. And this fear of God also protects you from committing mortal sin, because your mind no longer wants to entertain those evil temptations.
Fear of God is the starting place for being able to let go and let God take control of your life. You have to love and respect Him in order to desire the virtue of moral obedience. You have to surrender control in obedience to God because He is rightly ordered to have authority over you. He created you. He gives you life, both physically and spiritually. He gave you a soul that will live throughout eternity. He also gives you a vocation that you are obligated to live out if you love Him. Fear of God is the beginning of love. If you lack trust in God then you have something inside you that also lacks love of God. Pray for the grace to love Him as you should.
How to Let go of Control
Surrendering to God and Being Obedient Requires Humility
You may be fighting to surrender to God and be obedient to His will for your life, but this is a simple thing to do. Don’t over think it. You have to realize you are nothing without Jesus Christ, and I mean N-O-T-H-I-N-G. You are worm. You are dirt. You are not worthy to tie His sandals. It is by His death and resurrection that you have been given the opportunity to have an abundant life in union with the Holy Trinity. You must surrender all power of self to God.
Only in the act of surrender will you learn how to let go of control and trust in God. It’s funny, but true. Only until you do it will you understand how to do it and how it is being done every moment of the day every day. This surrender is possible for the rest of your life.
You must pick up your cross and follow Jesus. Contemplate what He means by this. The Cross was given Him by the Will of the Father, and He obeyed the Father and entered into His Passion for love of YOU.
God does not bless nor condone evil. He does not will for sinners to go to hell. But He allows evil and He allows people to condemn themselves to Hell for lack of love. God knew a third of the angels would fall from Heaven and become demons. God knew Adam and Eve would betray Him. Love does not desire evil. But love does not control either, so because God is not a tyrant and He gives us free will, we can freely choose to commit evil against God and others. We humans have no idea how much God loves us. His death on the Cross is His love letter to mankind. It is His FIAT.
All of the gospels show Jesus teaching us how He obeys the Father and is one with Him. This is our model. This is how He shows us the infinite Love He has for us – by dying at a level of torture and abuse not humanly sustainable – in obedience to the Father.
How to Let go of Control
Jesus Surrendered to the Will of the Father
The path to holiness is a path of meditating every day on the Passion of Jesus Christ. All we need is in this theology of love. Meditating on the crucifixion creates gratitude and humility in a soul and grows your love for God. His last words on the Cross were pure agony to speak. If God did all this, and our salvation came at such a price, then why is it that we humans think we do not have to sacrifice and obey Divine Will in our lives in order to be in heaven with God? Jesus is our cornerstone; it is through Christ we find our purpose and build firm foundations for our lives.
He does all this for you and you can’t stop looking at porn, or getting drunk, or gossiping about someone? You hold grudges and you can’t forgive. You steal money and you can’t repay it.
How to Let go of Control
Take up Your Cross and Follow Me
We are told to take up our Cross and follow Him. We are supposed to die to ourselves and live for Christ. We are supposed to be a radical people for God, temples of His Holy Spirit. Picking up your cross is an act of obedience and blind faith. You no longer live for yourself but every day you live and act for Christ. You ask Him what shall I do for You today my Lord? You wait for the Holy Spirit to come, you pray without ceasing. You receive “God-incidences” constantly, and witness mini miracles and inexplicable situations. You no longer live for yourself, but are commissioned by God to be His hands and feet. We are told to die to ourselves so that we can LIVE in Christ.
There is such a thing as an unforgivable sin. This is the sin against the Holy Spirit, a sin of a lack of love for God. Either we despair He will not forgive so we never ask, or we are haughty and unwilling to repent and follow Him despite knowing His will for our lives. If this is you, then pray and ask God to reveal to you your sins against Him. You can call yourself a Christian and still lack love for Christ. This was Judas.
To have a part in the Divine Life, you must pick up the cross that is given to you by the Will of the Father and enter into your passion and death of self for love of God. You sacrifice self-will for God’s will. And what you gain from it is immeasurable peace and joy, even in the midst of suffering. You gain an insight that can only be graced to you by God’s own Spirit. You gain a sense of humility and awe for His Power and Awesome Might. You are blessed by God in the many ways. He seeks you out in your daily activities to show you how much He loves you. You become and you feel a beloved child of the Father.
All this is true when you are living in the Divine Will of the Father. His loving gaze is always upon you. And you no longer have anxiety about your life, what you will eat, or the clothes you will wear. You understand His love is so powerful and you know that every gift He gives is for your purification and sanctification and because He has deep love for your soul. You take the bitter chalice if that is what He gives, and you say thank you.
The Divine Mercy devotion is a wonderful gift to our time in world history. God knew how much His children would stray from His loving Heart and chase after false gods and worship false idols in selfish self-love. We are prone to falling away from grace and desiring the things of this world. We are all guilty of it. Join me today in renewing your promise to love and obey God with all your heart. Let’s give Him our fiats so that we can be salt and light to a fallen world that needs Christ.
Living in the divine will of God is the daily practice of letting go of everything and giving God control of our lives. We can’t do this without the grace of God, and so let’s take a minute right now before we begin this prayerful meditation and just invoke the Holy Spirit.
How to Let go of Control
Come Holy Spirit Prayer
Come Holy Spirit, come. Please enter into my heart right now and prepare me to pray to the Holy Trinity on this day of immeasurable mercy. Pour out the gifts of Your Spirit into my soul through the Mercy of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, and through the Most Precious Blood and Water that flowed from His Sacred Heart upon His death on the Cross.
AMEN.
Let the house of Israel say, "His mercy endures forever." Let the house of Aaron say, “His mercy endures forever.” Let those who fear the LORD say, “His mercy endures forever.” I was hard pressed and was falling, but the LORD helped me. My strength and my courage is the LORD, and he has been my savior. The joyful shout of victory in the tents of the just: The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. By the LORD has this been done; it is wonderful in our eyes. This is the day the LORD has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it.
How to Let Go of Control
Lord, Help Me Let Go of Control
Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
I praise You and I thank You for giving me life. I glorify Your oneness and the Eternal Love You have poured out into the world for souls like mine. You have given me life and have chosen me for a great purpose. You desire me to share in the Divine Life through partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ. I am undeserving of such a great gift, and I regret the many times in my life that I failed to treasure this Gift of Life. I grieve over the many times I chose myself over You and I received Your gift with coldness and sin. I wish to amend my life from this moment on. Please give me a true fear of offending You. Do not let me give in to temptations against Your Divine Will for my life. Take away all those things that have become false idols. Strip me bare of any worldly want or need that keeps me from relationship with You.
In my heart I struggle to obey Your Divine Will because I lack faith in You and I fear the Cross. In Your Mercy please take away my lack of trust and fill me with the virtue of faith.
Most Holy Trinity, take away my fear of the Cross. I give You my fiat this day. Let Thy Will be done unto me, according to Your Word. I surrender all and I desire to die to myself in order that I may live in You. I give myself wholly and completely to You this day and I ask for Your Divine Mercy to fill my soul.
Jesus, I trust in You.
Jesus, I trust in You.
Jesus, I trust in You.
I give this day my heart, my intellect, and my will, to Your Sacred Heart, and I promise to live this day and each of the rest of the days of my life in union with Your will for my life.
I ask all this in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.
Hope in God to Let Go of Control
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you who by the power of God are safeguarded through faith, to a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the final time. In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of (your) faith, the salvation of your souls.
More Prayers to Do God's Will
Pray the Surrender Novena.
Pray the Litany of Obedience to the Will of God.
Trust in God and Do not Fear
“If God sends you many sufferings it is a sign that He has great plans for you, and certainly wants to make you a saint.” – Saint Ignatius of Loyola
“Do not fear what may happen tomorrow. The same loving Father who cares for you today will care for you tomorrow and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering, or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, then, and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginings.” – Saint Francis de Sales
“Lay all your cares about the future trustingly in God’s hands, and let yourself be guided by the Lord just like a little child.” – Saint Edith Stein