God, there’s just not enough room for both of us to be in charge of my life. It’s not that I haven’t taken the job seriously, mind you! I have fretted, laid awake nights, and worked out the most detailed and wonderful schemes. The problem is not with the planning and scheming. It’s with the “control” thing. Or, perhaps I should have said, the lack-of-control thing. I don’t really have any.
Oh, I know. You have repeatedly told me that you are competent to be in charge and that putting you in charge would relieve me of worry. But I seem to enjoy it. The fact that I’m worried about tomorrow seems to tell my sick soul that I somehow have a semblance of control over it. But I don’t. I just don’t.
Then there’s the mess I make of things. The worried-over plan begins to be put in motion, one of those things or people I can’t control comes into play, and the bus runs into the ditch! I try to press on. I try to force outcomes. The ditch gets deeper, and the pain begins to come.
Even so, you show up and offer to take control. You ask me – without ever forcing things – to turn loose of the wheel and trust you to steer. Sometimes I want to let you have control. I really do. Then something wells up inside me that makes me push you away – to tell you I can do it all by myself. Truth be told, I’m often thinking that just as soon as I get this thing out of the ditch, then I’m going to ask you to drive. Unfortunately, I never do.
Then there are the people on the bus with me. They are always the people I love most and for whose welfare I care most passionately. When I drive, then wreck, then push you away, I sense their disappointment. Even that, however, hasn’t been enough to this point. It kills me to know I’m hurting them, but I still want to steer. I want to be at the controls. I want to be in charge.
The time has come to try another approach. Oh, it’s not that I want to be heard saying that your way is the way of last resort for me. Or maybe it is. But I’m just so tired. And bunged up. And you and I both know things aren’t getting better with me in charge. So that’s why I’ve made up my mind.
God, I’m quitting. No more Mr. Know-It-All. No more having to be in charge. No more playing like I know more about myself than you do. You’re in control from this point forward. Heart and mind and body. Family and personal. Career and social. Thursday as well as Sunday. It’s all yours now. I resign as co-regent!
And even if you were (understandably) reluctant to take over after the mess I’ve made to date, I’m warning you: From now on you’re God – and I’m not!
Reprinted with gracious permission from Heartlight: https://www.heartlight.org. Top photo by Luke Miller/Pexels.
