Control

Since arriving at seminary I have been robbed of control.  From losing control over when I can eat dinner (the seminary dining hall has a limited time it's open for meals) to having a harried and ever-changing schedule, I have felt a whole variety of ways in which I have not been in control.  This is a problem for me.

I like control.  I like knowing when things start, and exactly when they end.  I like controlling my time, my space, and exactly how I look before I go out the door.

Being here is going to be an exercise in losing control.  Because it's not going to get any better.  As soon as I have my schedule figured out,  something will break and I'll have a bad hair day and it will feel like nothing will ever be manageable.

The classic line to enter here is that it's okay, God is in control.  What I need to hear though is the flip side of that. It's okay, you are not in control.

In one of my classes the professor asked how much freedom we thought we had.  Was life 60% determined, 40% free?  Any Calvinists in the house think it's 100% determined?  We didn't come to any clear consensus.

What I decided is that I am less free than I think I am.  I'd like to think I'm free to carefully organize all of my own decisions and not have to worry about any one else's mistakes, to not be concerned about what God is asking of me.  That would be comfortable.  Safe.  Contained.  But I am bound to my community, near and far.  I have a deep love and obligation to God.

Thank God that's the case.

I am tied to something wild and beautiful, something unknown and terrifying that pulls me out of control.  I am not the savior.  I am not the institution.  I do not have to fix the world.  I do not have to make everything perfect, as much as I would love to neatly tidy up and put away all of the sadness and hurt around me.  I do not have control.  I will always live a disrupted life.

Thanks be to God.