Control.
Even those of us who think we’re the furthest from being control freaks have things we want control over.

I think being in the passenger seat of a car shines upon the control freak in us all. You just feel better (safer) if you were behind the wheel, because you know how precisely you would react to certain situations.

It’s a not a pleasant feeling to know that you’re not in control.
And it’s often hard to accept that we don’t have control over things.
We don’t have control of what our kids will become like.
We don’t have control of how our vision for a ministry will come to life. We don’t have control over how people react to our words and sermon. Oh, but we so want that control…

I think that’s one of the hardest things about faith: knowing that God’s in control. And it’s more difficult to accept that when God’s in control, we are not.

We have a plan. An outline of life. What we expect to accomplish. Goals. Visions. Dreams.
And we do everything in our control to bring those things to life. A lot of the times (if not most), we ask God to bless our dreams and make it happen. Instead of asking, “What would you have me do?” we’re more prone to say, “This is what I’m going to do. Please make it happen.”

The hardest thing is to not only acknowledge that God’s in control, but to accept that God is in control.

So we fight with God. We argue. We pout. Sometimes we throw tantrums. But in the very end, after we go through all the pain… we end up obeying God.

You’d think one would learn after the first time. But wrestling with God seems like a given to me in my life. And the sick thing is, I know that God’s way will win in the end, but I still go in fighting for my control; to do things my way. I could save myself the grief, the embarrassing lesson of humility, the pain, the headaches, etc.

Control is one of the hardest to give to God.
But God doesn’t want only a part of me.
God wants all of me. God wants all that I am and nothing that I’m not.
And God doesn’t want to control me, in a sense that God’s a controlling God.
But, God knows us so intimately well… God has a plan for us, plans that are uniquely, fearfully and wonderfully carved out for us so that we can live the most effective and fulfilling life.

And life is so much easier if we just go with God’s flow…