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I Am Not In Control, But I Am Safe

 If you spend any amount of time reading the news, you will become aware that human beings live a tenuous and fraught existence. Death is always close at hand, but in our comfort and blessing, we can almost pretend that it is not.

When people realize they are not in control, things can go two ways: either a person becomes irretrievably anxious about their lack of control, or they come to know that the One who is in control has them securely.

I have been made master of a few things; I have plenty to eat and drink, and I can choose whatever thing I want. I'm quite particular about my clothing, and I have a favorite shirt. I have a pair of "happy pants" that I'm quite fond of. Yet maybe my tendency to become upset at the utterly inconsequential things of life is an occasion to reflect on the ways that I still seek control which I do not have.

If we are simply chasing money, or influence, or any number of things, the emptiness of it all is readily apparent, eventually. That is, after the distraction of mindless amusements has faded away.

God loves me. This truth invades my daily existence. Sometimes I have struggled to believe that my life has a purpose, or that anyone would care, if I were no longer here. In another respect, these thoughts are utterly irrational, because I daresay few are more well-liked than me. Still, we all face these thoughts, from time to time. God loves me. It is the sort of thing that makes you wonder if God is crazy, but then, it's a mercy, to be able to think and laugh about the possibility that God is crazy. Maybe He is, but I have seen enough of the world's view of "sanity" that I'm quite willing to take the chance.

You can ask God why He loves you, and he simply replies, as if he's repeating it back to you: Because I love you. It is both maddening, and delightful, to talk to God. Somehow, I touch the essence of my existence; the center of my experience as myself. And yet, the journey is only partially into myself. It is also outward and upward, into the royal realms for which I am destined. The Kingdom of God is the presence of God; His comfort and care touch my greatest needs.

Knowing that existence itself is so capricious and tenuous, why would I want to be in control? Whatever control I claim to possess is an illusion.

God not only intends to redeem us from the worst versions of ourselves; he also wishes to redeem us from our worst imaginations of ourselves. We do not control the narrative. God has established my inherent dignity, quite apart from his offer to me to live forever in that dignity, in His presence.

What do I say for myself? I find in myself no right to disagree with God's appraisal of my value. My doubts and self-hatred are in a sense illusions, no less than the control I thought I possessed.


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