The illusion of control

I obsess. I fret. I worry. I stress. I do. I do so because I am not in control and I don't know how to handle that.

We all want control. We all want to be in charge. Maybe not in charge of everything but at least in charge of something. If I can't run the world at least I can decide what I want to do for dinner.

We feel more comfortable when we feel like we have control. We feel safer driving on the interstate than we do flying in a plane because when we're driving we don't have to rely on the pilot to get us there safely, we're driving. We're in control. What we can't control is that 80,000 lb semi that just crossed the median and hit us head on. In life that sometimes happens. When we see something like that happen to others it helps relieve us of the illusion of control.

I have been free of that illusion for a while, now. It's not comfortable. It doesn't feel safe. I don't care much for it. But I am not able to regain the illusion no matter how hard I try.

So I am not in control. Who is? Is God in control? We like to think of God as being sovereign, all knowing and all powerful. We may not understand the plan but we know there is one and we know that God is in control. But then, when shit happens, as it so often does, do we blame God for it? If God is in control then wouldn't God be to blame for everything that goes wrong in this life? I don't know. It's kind of a tough thing to wrap this limited mind around. Is the universe a better place if there's a God in charge of it that allows horrible things to happen seemingly arbitrarily? Would it be better for God to be in control of everything and to allow (or even cause) bad stuff to happen or for God to be powerless to stop the bad?

Our existence in this world raises so many more questions than it answers. Our faith(s) attempt to answer them but the problems of sin, free will, suffering, and death make those answers unsatisfying and sometimes unpalatable. I don't have the answers I'd like. I don't have control here. I'm never going to. But I do have faith. I don't know everything I'd like to know about God. I find myself sometimes unsure about even the existence of God in a huge, cold universe. My beliefs about the nature of God and what it requires of me have changed so much over the years it's hard to place too much stock in "belief" here. And yet I do believe. I do have faith. I do try to connect with God daily and do God's will in this life. I do believe that whatever shit happens in life there is nothing that God can not redeem. I do believe in grace, love, and hope.

I'm not in control here. I don't know if God is. I'm not even sure what it means. I don't know how everything works. All I can do is surrender and hope. That's a lot better than being hopeless, I assure you. Control is overrated, anyway.