Thoughts on control
When my brother and I were about 11 and living in Biloxi, Mississippi, we lived near what we called “the woods.” There we spent weeks one summer building a fort. We built a small, boxy space, surrounded it with stacked pine logs as a fence around it, protected it with traps (holes we dug covered with sticks and leaves, not smart), as well as hid it back deep in the woods surrounded by trees making it difficult to see. Somehow, as little boys it mad us feel safe, secure and comfortable when we would go back and spend time there (we also made our own bow and arrows just in case the imaginary enemy showed up). But obviously we did not stay in that apparently safe, secure fort (which is now a housing area). We moved on in life toJapan, Navy, marriage and 30 years of ministry.
I think that people sometimes spend a great deal of time attempting to build that same fort, only bigger and more involved, but looking for the same thing — safety, security, comfort — often doing so in the realm of control. If I can control my environment, the people around me, even my world, then I can sit down in peace and safety and enjoy life. Through control we keep working to build that place, waiting for the day we can finally sit down in safety, security, comfort and finally enjoy life. It becomes about the control more than it does about the life. The sad part, we can’t control much anyway, if anything, and often can barely control ourselves. We are after all human, but hear me now, humans who have a great and loving “big enough” God.
Jesus said in John Chapter 3, “The wind blows where it wills, and so does everyone who is born of the Spirit of God.”
The person who thinks they are in control, especially in control of the future, not only are wrong about that assumption, but they will often miss the direction the wind of God is blowing because they won’t recognize it for what it is. Their own bent to control turns their lives into a rickety fort surrounded by little traps that even God finds hard to get through.
Let God be God, and then I just have to be me. This I can do.
Category: Uncategorized, Weekly Thoughts
