Skip to main content

Out Of Control

             Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring. (Proverbs 27:1)

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. (James 4:13-14)

This is where I am. It’s so where I am. I’ll admit I’m a control freak. I like things to be settled. I like feeling like I am not drowning in the details of my life. I like thinking that I know what I’m supposed to be doing. I don’t know whether I actually boast about tomorrow, but “Hurry up! Not Yet!” and “Just roll with the punches” are not my favorite conditions.

I’ve gotten accustomed to what I call the Abraham bit – going to a country I don’t know, but that doesn’t mean it’s comfortable. And today’s passages don’t oppose our wanting to feel some control. But they tell us that we must remember that our control is not absolute. We can’t plan for everything, and we’re foolish to try. On September 10, 2001, I’m sure people had plans. I know that early in 2015, I didn’t plan to quit work to take care of Dad. At the end of 2019, I wasn’t planning to head down the path I’m on – a path demanding huge changes in my life.

And I’ve made some measure of peace with each of those changes. They and others like them have been the right thing to do. I have told God, “Not my will, but Thine,” and “I bow the knee even though it makes me say ‘ouch!’” But that doesn’t mean that I don’t stub my toes as I try to walk through the “dark” of the unknown immediate future. It just means that what these verses teach is wise.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more