Everything Is Never EnoughSample

OUT OF CONTROL

We had to drive at a walking pace. The headlights were little help. My friend Nick half jogged in front of the car to lead us. Four friends, my brother, and I had just begun a hundred-mile trip back to downtown Los Angeles on a twisting mountain road above Santa Barbara. We were in a fog so solid it might have been a billion-cubic-inch pillow in front of us. And we had zero chance of controlling it.

What do you try to control? What happens when you can’t?

To desire control is to grasp at guarantees. You want to be cer­tain that the dollar you feed in will send a snack through the slot. But this life is full of everything except guarantees. Striving for control is like constantly clenching your teeth. The effort you spend hurts you and hinders your chances of success. Life de­mands that you bend, but grasping for control leaves you brit­tle.

When you give up control, your eyes and head start to clear. You find more in yourself and your life to laugh at. You learn to focus not on what you can’t do, but on what you can.

Letting go of control is like taking a deep gulp of air after you’ve held your breath too long. The irony is that happiness comes not from controlling your life but from realizing that everything you care about most is beyond your control.

Qohelet reminds us that although God and many circumstances are beyond our control, nothing is beyond God’s control. Qohelet observes, “I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor any­thing taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him” (Ecclesiastes 3:14).

God oversees history in the manner he does to teach us that we are not in control and to train us to fear him because he is. This fear arises from recognizing the infinite difference be­tween his power and our weakness, his control and our impo­tence, his inscrutable wisdom, and our ignorance. In tomorrow’s devotion, we’ll explore what a gift that fear is.

God, you hold all things in your hand. Yet so often, I strive for control, grasping at certainty where none exists. Teach me to release my grip. When the path ahead is foggy, help me to walk by faith, knowing that you see clearly even when I cannot. Amen.