Saturday 15 January 2011

Control Freakery and so on

Lord, I don't like not being in control.

I don't like that you want me to get used to it either. I don't like that my Plans might not be Your Plans, and the constant battle that we have sometimes gets me down.  You're in control, I'm in control, you're in control, I'm in control.... it always comes back to you. I have a nagging suspicion that in the 'I'm in control' periods I might have been kidding myself.  You've got it covered, haven't you? I just can't seem to let it go.

It's like this: I'm not built to take things as they come - I don't do spontaneity very well. You made me like this - it's hardly news to you, is it?!  I like to plan. I like to know what's happening, and there are those members of my family who would add that I like to call the shots, too.  The words 'Control Freak' have been used more than once in my hearing but I think that's a little unfair, don't you?

So when I can't plan, because I don't know what's happening, and I can't predict or control events, then it irritates like a bit of grit under my contact lens and then I get frustrated and cross and stressed. So why do you do this?  I'm not a 'fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants' sort of girl, and you made me that way.

Aha.  I can feel the sermon coming on.  Grr.  I know that your way is best. I do. I DO.

Didn't mean to shout. I just wish that your ideas and mine might co-incide a bit more often. It would make things easier. Less scary.
"'But my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways', declares the Lord."
Isaiah 55:8

I'm guessing you know what you're doing, don't you.

I hate situations that I can't do anything about.  I hate that impotent, helpless feeling, like a rabbit in the headlights.  I hate it when I don't know what's happening with Bryan's job. I hate it when another child at Lizzie's school is being horrible to her and yet common sense tells me it wouldn't be sensible to charge in and try to sort it out. I hate it when friends of mine are going through a hard time and it doesn't seem fair but I can't change things.  I hate it when I'm forced to throw out a plan. I hate it when I don't have a plan at all. But you do.
'For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future'.
Jeremiah 29:11

So you have a plan. You won't let me down. I believe that. It's just that in my perverse, childish way of thinking, it seems sometimes that my insurance policy for the ridiculous possibility that you might let me down is to think it all through myself, obsess over it, worry about it, and lay down plans and hopes of my own.  How can I believe in your love, your care, your Plan, and at the same time think I can do it better myself? I'd better sort out my life (and everyone else's) just in case you slip up and get it wrong?

But I do believe in you, that you are my Lord and my Saviour and no-one wants Good for me more than you. How can I do it all myself?  From my tiny viewpoint of being me, on the somethingth of January 2011, from this address, this computer, with the view of the kitchen and the back garden, the view of my little life and my little experiences - when you have the overview of all of history, all that's happened and will happen, the back-story and the subplot.....

I need more faith. Always more faith.


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