Control

I usually think of myself as being pretty easy-going, but I'm starting to recognize how selective I am about it. I'm easy-going about things that don't involve personal or emotional risk: I don't care if my roommate didn't unload the dishwasher, or get stressed about plans I make with friends. It's easy to see that people are more important than always having my way in those details.

BUT, when I'm insecure, I am a control freak. Over and over again through the past years God has pushed me to recklessly trust in Him. The only problem is that when I do that in a fallen world, I often get hurt. We all do. Sometimes I have the perspective that the heights are worth the depths, but then at other times it feels like the depths are all I see, and I lose sight of Him.

At times like that I find myself so ridiculously cautious. I try to build a perfectly safe place for myself, and put up safeguards to keep out people who could hurt me. And then I find myself lonely in that carefully contructed existence because ultimately no one is safe. I'm frustrated when I realize that I'm not a safe person, and find myself inadvertently hurting others.

I analyze and over-analyze and look for formulas to show me the right way of doing things and in the end it always makes less sense than before.

So, I might as well give up trying to figure out all the answers, and just be. I might as well just live and love and give recklessly, knowing that I will get hurt sometimes... but that if I don't risk, I'll miss all the good things too. I may as well give up trying to do it all right because:

a.) I mess it up all the time as it is, and
b.) God creates ex nihilo (from nothing) and my screw-ups don't ruin His plans anyway

This isn't exactly rocket science, and I've learned it all before, but here I am again having to lay down my safeguards and controls. It's frightening, but also a relief, to once again, give up control, or at least the illusion of it. I never had it in the first place.