Is Your Faith Holding You Back? How Your Locus of Control Makes You Blame God

Have you ever felt stuck, frustrated, or even angry with God about your current circumstances? 

In this eye-opening episode of the I Am The Possible podcast experience, Treveal dives deep into the psychological concept known as the "Locus of Control" and uncovers how an external locus of control could be sabotaging your life and faith.

Discover how shifting from blaming God and others toward taking ownership can unlock the door to greater joy, peace, and purpose. 

Treveal shares personal stories, practical strategies, and powerful insights to help you reclaim control, stop feeling like a victim, and start creating the life you truly desire.

Join Treveal as he explores:

• The critical differences between internal and external locus of control.
• Why a misplaced faith perspective might be keeping you trapped in unhealthy patterns.
• Three practical steps you can implement today to strengthen your internal locus of control.

It’s time to empower yourself by embracing the gift of choice and stepping into your God-given potential. 

Listen now to begin reshaping your life from the inside out!

Transcript

Treveal C.W. Lynch (00:09)
hey guys, welcome to another episode of the I Am The Possible podcast experience, the place where possibilities become perspective. Guys, welcome once again into the space and into the place I am your host Treveal CW Lynch. Mr. What, what, and that what, what stands for what you see in yourself and what you say to yourself.

For those are the two most influential and impactful things in this universe. Those two things will ultimately determine what you are able to create in and through your life. And today we're going to be jumping right into this. Today I want to ask you a question. Is your religion ruining your life? Is your religion ruining your life? Stay with me. Don't cut me off. Don't shut me down.

Even if that offends you, even if the question rubs you the wrong way, stick with me, stay with me. You know, I got something in store for you and you know, I'm going to break it all down and make it all make sense in just a moment. But before I do that, I want to pause for the cause. You are the cause. You are the reason I do what I do. The reason I continue to show up. The reason I continue to look for ways to elevate this platform and to provide you the very best when it comes to self-improvement, personal development.

⁓ and just all things, man, that are going to build you up, that are going to empower you, that are going to educate you, that are going to help to elevate you. but I thank you for your support. Every email, every question, every download, every comment for every subscription. Thank you so much for every moment of interaction that you guys provide, ⁓ because you're the reason that I continue to do this. ⁓ so listen, let's, let's, let's jump into this one, man. This one's heavy on my heart this morning. ⁓ I want to.

certainly share a quick story with you as to why and where this really came from. But again, the foundational question for today is your religion ruining your life? Your actual faith in a God, is it ruining your life? Now, let me just say something. I believe in God. I believe there is a God. I love God. I'm a man of God.

But I think sometimes as believers, Christians, people of faith, those who believe in God, I think sometimes we can overdo it to the point that our concept of God is holding us back in life.

As if there are certain things, privileges, possibilities that we could be tapping into, that we could have access to, things that we could be doing. And even, I would even go as far as saying God would even want you to have these things. God would even desire for you to enjoy these things. But you prevent these things from happening. You prevent your own progress. You sabotage yourself because of your current perception, your image.

of God, the way that you and God, the relationship that you have with God and with yourself most importantly, because that's what I'm going to be talking about primarily, the relationship that you have with yourself, right? What you see in yourself, what you say to yourself, those are the two most important things. And in and through that, a lot of what you see in yourself and say to yourself, that is determined by how you relate to God.

by your religion, by your faith, by what you believe, right? That's determining what you see in yourself and what you say to yourself. And so I wanna introduce you to something today called the Locus of Control. I've got some notes in front of me as I always do as an educator, I wanna educate, I wanna inspire, I wanna empower you, I wanna provide you the tools for you to work with, for you to consider.

I'm not here to tell you what to do. I'm not here to tell you right from wrong. I'm here to give you options. I'm here to give you options. I'm here to expose you to information that maybe you've never been exposed to, to provide perspectives that maybe you've never considered before that are going to aid you and better you or better position you ⁓ to make greater decisions in your life that will ultimately lead you to the kinds of destinations, outcomes.

Right circumstances that you desire in your life. And so today I want to introduce you to this concept called the Locus of control It's a psychological concept the Locus of control and there's two kinds of Locuses, I guess that's how you say a Locus is of control. But before I share those things I want to share with you a quick story the other day. I was I was on social media I won't even tell you what the platform is But I was on social media

And an individual, I won't drop any names, an individual made a post. And I want to keep this general because in case they're listening, in case you may know someone who knows someone, I never intend to out somebody on this platform. So I was on social media, this individual made a post and they were basically saying that I'm in a position

in life that God has put me in or God has me in, but I don't really want to be in this position. Like God's got me somewhere and I guess I'll have to endure it. I guess I'll have to deal with it even though I don't want to be in this position, even though I don't even like being in this position. And it

And it hit me pretty hard. It hit me pretty hard because that's something that I'm very passionate about. People having a relationship with themselves to such a degree that they understand what God's given them, what God's given us. When you have something, but you don't know you have it, it's very hard for you to use it. Let me say that one more time.

When you have something, when you actually possess something, but you don't know, you're not aware that you possess it. You're not able to use it. And if you don't use it, then you can't take advantage of what it affords you. So as I was reading this post, what was going through my mind was maybe God does, or maybe God doesn't have you there. But people in the...

In the comments, they began to amen this individual's statement. But I couldn't amen it. I couldn't just aimlessly say, yep, amen. I can't just agree with that. I see it differently. Maybe God has nothing to do with where you are, if I'm speaking to that person. Maybe God has nothing to do with where you are. Maybe there's other contributing factors that have gotten you to where you are. Maybe...

this thing that I'm referring to, this thing that God's given you, maybe that got you there. This thing called choice, the power of choice. Maybe your decisions, your choices got you into this situation, but your religion tells you that God is the one that puts you in that position. So you have to endure it even though you don't like it. Are there times that

Perhaps the will and purposes of God concerning life itself or even to the degree we would say your life specifically, is there ever a possibility where God has you in a position that's uncomfortable? Sure, I can accept that, absolutely. But to make it the default, to make it how you go through life, to make it what you just by default believe,

I don't think that's a healthy approach. And that then brings us to this locus of control. See the locus of control is this idea, this concept, and there's two of them. One of them is called the internal locus of control, internal. And what it means is, is that if I have a healthy internal locus of control, then it is primarily my belief that the circumstances and situations

that occur in my life. They are occurring because of something I've done, something I've said, something I've chosen. It's a way of taking ownership. It's a way of saying, I'm contributing to these outcomes. I'm contributing to my circumstances. I'm taking ownership that there's been things I've done, I've said, I've allowed that have.

gotten me to where I am. That's a internal locus of control. It's the ability to own one's actions and one's influence in positioning them within and throughout life. That's a internal locus of control. The external locus of control is giving the power away, giving the ownership away. It's always someone else's.

It's always someone else's decision. Someone else got me here. Someone else made this happen. ⁓ Life is not happening through me, no. Life is happening to me. It's a victim mentality. It's a, I'm only here because of what they did. I'm only here because of what they said. I'm here because of them. The blame.

is always, you know, you're always pointing the finger at someone else and saying, I'm suffering, I'm here, I'm whatever, because of what they did or said. It's a way of punting the responsibility, giving it away. And one thing that I've learned is that you cannot change what you refuse to control, right? You cannot change what you...

refuse to control. In other words, if you don't own it, you can't change it. If you don't own it, you can't change it. Changing starts with ownership. I live in this home, right? I'm in this house. I'm renting this house. I don't own the house. There's only so much I can do to this house without permission, right? There's only so much. And even if I wanna make a major change within my home,

I've got to go to the owner to get the permission to make that major change. But there's very few things that I can do without permission at all. But if I ever want to make a major change, I've got to go get permission because I don't, I don't own it. The same is true in life. You may not like where you are, but you'll never be able to change where you are. You'll never be able to go from where you are to where you want to be because you refuse to take ownership. You refuse to see your part in getting you where you are.

You refuse to say, played a role in this. I played a part. I contributed to getting me into this circumstance or into this situation. Now I know on the backside, you could throw a pity party. If you take full responsibility, ⁓ then it's like, man, I keep getting myself into these bad situations, right? You can look at it from a negative perspective, but you can also look at it from a very positive one. If you're the one that's getting yourself into these situations, then you're also the one that can get yourself out.

Now again, for my religious folks out there, for my Christians, for my people of faith, please hear what I'm saying. I am not saying that you should and could do life apart from God. I don't believe that you can. I believe God is in all things. We are literally wrapped in God. That's my personal belief. There is no escaping the literal presence of God. And God is integrated intimately into all things. What we're talking about, what I'm talking about today is

The idea that God has not given me a choice, that I'm in a situation that God has put me in. See, that's that external locus of control. It flows even into the relationship that you have with God. Because if it's not, my boyfriend did it, my girlfriend did it, my mom did it, my dad did it, my boss did it, that guy did it, that girl did it. If you're not pointing the finger at someone else, guess what?

You can be so religified, so religious that you think operating in an external locus of control, you think that God is moving you around the earth like a chess piece on a board. I guess I'm in this situation because God put me in this situation. I don't even like this situation, but I guess I got to just stay in this situation. And now God becomes your scapegoat. Now God becomes...

the one that you're pointing your finger at. See how that works? See, because we have a poor relationship with ourselves, we don't see ourselves as capable. We don't see ourselves as empowered. We don't see ourselves as someone that God has equipped with this precious, precious, powerful gift called choice. We think that we're a victim. We think that God is moving us all around and others are moving us all around. And listen, let me raise my hand first. I used to be that way.

I used to be that way. No value, no worth, no confidence, no clarity, lost, just a complete mess. And I would always find a way to see how someone else was doing something to me.

But I learned over time to take ownership. I learned over time that no, they could say things or do things, but ultimately it's coming down to what I sing and do. I'm the greatest influencer, right? As I like to say, the person that is most influential in determining the course of your life is the person that you believe yourself to be. Yeah. The person...

most influential in determining the course of your life is the person that you believe yourself to be. And if you believe that you are God's little puppet, that you are God's little chess piece, then you will always be a victim. You'll always be someone waiting for God to move you on the

on the chest board of life. And you'll always be the person that says things like, I'm waiting on God. My breakthrough is coming. God got me here only but for a season and one day, someday, somehow. Again, again, I know some of my audience, faithful, faithful men and women of God. And some of these things I might be saying might be rubbing you the wrong way.

Just hear the heart of what I'm saying. Some of us are overdoing it. Every little move in our lives we're attributing to God. But the danger in that is when it goes south, God was the reason. And it's like, wait a minute, man. God, all throughout the Bible, didn't God continue to give man, human, homo sapiens?

Choice? I sit before you today, life and death, choose, what are you gonna do? Put you in the garden, there's a tree, don't touch it, what you gonna do? Like I can go biblical scripture after scripture after scripture, God gives us choice. Even when God was moving and prompting Abraham, Lot, hey, what are you gonna do? You take whatever route you're gonna take, Lot, you take whatever route you're gonna take, y'all, you guys decide.

All throughout the Bible, man, it's choice. You know what? I got a question. Before I give you these three points and kind of break this down and kind of wrap it up.

Where did we get the idea that God is so involved in our lives that

Like God is literally moving us throughout life. Like every station in life that we find ourselves, God is actually moving us. Like where do we get this robotic, God is like literally moving me from place to place. Where is that in the scripture? Where do we, like someone tell me where that scripture is. Because I see way more scripture of God creating

And then God allowing man to cultivate, create, advance, reproduce.

make choices, make decisions, autonomy. I see God giving us autonomy. see God giving us free reign. see, mean, listen, if you believe in God and you believe in God's love and you see what's happening in the country right now, if you don't think we got free will and free choice, I don't know what you call it.

Do you think a loving God, a God who is pure love, pure essence of love, agape, pure 100 % love is moving the chess pieces that we see moving around right now in America, in our country? Come on. We're making these decisions. We're making these choices. You're making your decisions. You're making your choices. And perhaps,

You are where you are because of things you are doing. And when you step back and say, Hey, I've got, I've got choice, God given choice, the power of choice. You step into a greater awareness of who you are, what you are, of what you have and what you can create. You improve your internal locus of control and you start to create a better quality of life for yourself.

So let me share with you this quick little, I did some research and I'm always doing research, good Lord. But one statistic that I came across in some of my recent research, and then I wanna give you a few steps that you can take if you're someone who you're like, yeah, this is hitting home. yeah, that's me. I just blame God for everything. I'm just.

I'm not taking any responsibility for anything. I have a poor ⁓ internal locus of control, right? And I'm pretty much external, right? I'm thinking everyone else and everything else is influencing my life. And I could stand to improve my internal locus of control. If that's you, if that's what you're saying right now, I'm gonna give you three steps that you can take to improve that. But before I do, I just wanted to share, statistically,

And I forgot the site for this one. But statistically it says, those who have a stronger internal locus of control, they report greater and higher job satisfaction and performance, less stress, and just a greater sense of self-worth and well-being. It's when there's a healthy level of, yes, there is a God, and yes,

God is involved in my life. I have access to God.

However, simultaneously, God has given me the power of choice. And God is saying to me, I've provided this thing called life and the raw materials of life. And you get to...

like a piece of clay, you get to mold it, you get to shape it, you get to fashion it, you get to move it forward or hold it back. You get to develop a ⁓ locus, ⁓ internal locus of control, or you get to hold on to a very high external locus of control. It's like God gives us this beautiful thing called life. And it's, in my opinion, this is my opinion, it's very selfish of us.

is very irresponsible of us. It's very degrading to us, to ourselves, to believe that we're some puppet on a string or we're some chess piece on a board that God is just manipulating and just moving around all day, every day without us being able to have say in what our lives look like.

Hope and pray that that made sense. I may have offended a few. I don't know, maybe not. But let me give you these three steps. Number one, if you wanna improve your locus, your internal locus of control, the first thing is shift from blame to ownership. I kinda already talked about this one. Let's go from blame to ownership. By default, let's say things like, I own it. I was just saying that I was just having a conversation with my family earlier this week.

And there were times, because I've done this over the years and I'm not bragging. I'm just being a product of my own, of my own preaching, right? I'm going to practice what I preach. First of all, yeah, I'm a practice and then I'm a preacher, right? But yeah, you know, just, hey, ownership. I did that. That was me. No one to blame. Just me. And that's a state of empowerment. When you can say, hey, I did it, when you can own it, when you can say, yep, it was me.

Man, it's so empowering because it means that, okay, well, I know where I am and I know what I need to work on and I know what I need to improve upon and change and improvement. It's possible. So let's go from blaming to ownership. ⁓ Again, what you don't own, can't change just like the house. If you don't own the house, you can't change the house very much. You can't make any major changes. And if your life is in need of a major change, the first thing that you need to do is take complete ownership of it.

God's gonna be whatever God's gonna be. God's gonna do whatever God's gonna do. I once heard once, know, God is, you know, in a, if you're somebody in a car, shout out to Pastor Kerwin, Kerwin L. Manning, my pastor, pastor Dean of church, shout out and salute to my church family. ⁓ You know, I forgot who he heard it from, but it was this analogy, like God says, hey, you put your foot on the gas, I'll control the brake.

Like if you're going too fast, I'll slow you down. If you're taking the wrong turns, I'll redirect you. It's almost like you got the green light. ⁓ I'll worry about the yellow and the red says God. Just an analogy, just an analogy. What it does is it disarms us from this whole concept of God's holding me back. God's got me in a position I don't want to be in. God's got me doing something I don't like.

I don't know where we got that concept. It's such a poor freaking concept that God wants to put us in positions that we don't like. God wants to punish us. God wants to put us in situations that are just always uncomfortable. Like God's whole MO is to grow you and develop you through testing and trial and fire and flames. it's like, man, where are we getting this?

Where are we getting this from? A part of life is to enjoy life. And I know I'm going on a tangent, so let me pull it back in. It just pisses me off, to be honest. It just pisses me off that we always are thinking that God is doing something to us that makes us feel pain ⁓ and ⁓ stress, and we're always trying to, we're always being taught a lesson.

And I won't even go down that path because I got some other things stirring in my mind as to why we do that. But I digress. Okay. Number two. All right. So we're going to shift from blaming to ownership. Right? So we're going to say things like, what part did I play in this? You're in a situation, you don't like it, circumstances, you don't like it. You step back and you don't say someone else did it or God did it or God's got me here or someone else got me here. It's, wait a minute. What, what parts did I play in this? What?

What did I do that got me here? Or at least how did I contribute to it? By doing so, become greater. You don't become greater. You become more aware. That's the word I was looking for. You become more aware of what you've done and what you need to critique, what you need to adjust, right? To get better outcomes. And it keeps you in the ownership seat. Okay? ⁓ Then number two, track your wins, right?

Pen and pad, man, old school. I know we got all this technology, but old school. Pen and pad, each day pick one or two things that you are gonna do intentionally and log, today I will do this, okay, today I did this, okay, this was the result. It's a way of like rewiring your brain. It's like relearning the fact that you are participating in this thing called life. You're not just being flung around.

but you're actually a participant. It shows you the cause and effect. It reminds you that when you do something, something actually reoccurs. Action, reaction. It helps you to build a healthy respect for the fact that your choices matter. The things you say, and think matter so that you can have a healthier internal locus of control.

And then thirdly, we're going to go from venting to visioning. I like this one most. We're going to go from venting to visioning. When you vent, you are at the disadvantage. You are defeated. When you vision, then you are developing. Okay. You are making decisions, right? As you develop and make decisions, you're moving forward. As long as you are defeated and, and, and, ⁓

and you're in this state of denial of your own responsibility, then we stay stuck. A lot of people are, man, I feel like I'm stuck. I feel like I can't move forward in life. Normally those people have a very high external locus of control and a very low internal locus of control. Because the only reason that you're stuck is because of the way that you see yourself, the things you are saying to yourself and the things that you see.

as to the contributing factors of your situation. And that's a external locus of control. You see others as being the reason you are where you are. I don't make enough money because my boss doesn't pay me enough. ⁓ I don't like where I live because the neighbors are loud and disruptive. ⁓ I don't have a happy marriage because my spouse is an idiot.

Right? It's always, don't, I can't, I won't because they, they, they. And if you spent more time assessing what you are in control of, what you are able to change and adjust, and then actually taking action on doing those things, your life would improve dramatically. So I hope and pray that this has all made sense to you today. Again, the title of this one,

Is your religion robbing you? Is your religion robbing you of your joy, of your happiness, of your peace, of your life? Is it literally punishing your life? ⁓ I don't recall what the title was ⁓ officially because I didn't write it down. ⁓ But that in essence is your religion robbing you of a quality life because you've

You've believed for so long and somehow, someway you were taught, again, I don't know where it is in scripture, but you were taught ⁓ that you're in a slump because that's where God has you, because God's teaching you a lesson. God's training you up through trial and tribulation. God is perfecting your faith through much pain and suffering.

That's not always the case. That's not always the case. More times than not. That's probably not the case. More times than not. So, for whatever it's worth, I hope and pray that this has blessed you, has been of value to you. As always, I love getting questions, comments, ⁓ feedback.

bring it on. Please, please, please. It helps me to grow, helps me to develop, it helps me to create content that's relevant for you. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe on any podcast platform that you might be listening to this on. If you're on the Tube and you should be on the Tube and if you're not on the Tube, you need to get on the Tube and become a subscriber to the podcast there on YouTube. That also helps me out to get this.

to get this message out, to get this mission out, to get this work out into the world, because I believe more and more people need to ⁓ be exposed to this information, especially those that are of the faith, because sometimes we can just kind of overdo it. All right? So until next time, and I love you guys, I'm praying for you guys, I'm believing in you guys. ⁓ If any of you are in the market for a speaker,

Click the link somewhere in the show notes. Hire me as a speaker. If any of you are looking for a one-on-one coach or a group coach for your organization, again, click the link somewhere below. But I would love to be of service to you in that capacity. As a speaker, as a coach, it is my passion to come alongside you to create these kinds of conversations that lead to...

greater transformation in the areas of life that you desire most. But I believe that whatever area of life you desire to positively influence and impact is ultimately going to come down to you improving the what, what, the two things, what you see in yourself and what you say to yourself, intra-personal communication skills. That's my specialty. ⁓ And that's, that's what I want to help bring more and more awareness to.

in this world. So I'm your guy if you're looking for something along those lines. All right.

This is Treveal CW Lynch. This is the I Am The Possible podcast experience. The place where possibilities become perspective.