Control Freak

Why is being in control so important to me? How do I give up control of my life to God and actually let him take it? Did I really take a first step in doing this with the mom-purse Lenten discipline experiment? Now that Lent is officially over, these are the questions I'm left with. I have come to some conclusions during the last season and have also realized that this is just the beginning of the journey. There is still so much more to think and pray about.

1. I was using my mom-purse as a substitute for God. Many aspects of God in my life could be (and were!) replaced by my giant bag of awesome stuff. These include the security that God promises me, my identity in him, God being the most important thing in my life, trusting God with my life in general, and relying on myself to help fulfill the needs of others. I was guilty of idolatry, gluttony, pride, considering myself better than God, and faithlessness. These are only a few of the words I could use to describe myself. Now, does God see me as a lost cause because I treated my purse as greater than him? Nope, he actually still loves me and has cared enough to help me see where I have gone wrong so I can come back to where I belong in his family.

2. God wants me to be his. I would tell you that I have been God's child from a very early age and that I haven't looked back, but that would pretty much be a lie. I did give my heart to God when I was very young, and I have been on a journey to live my life for him ever since, but regretably, I have stumbled and faltered and needed to be kicked in the pants here and there to get back on the path God has laid out for me. It is not for my own self-help that this purse experiment was important. I have not been doing what God wants me to do, and he is saddened when I try to rebel against him and do my own thing and think that I am amazing apart from him. He wants me for his own and doesn't want to share me with anyone or anything. There is a reason he is described as a jealous God in the Ten Commandments.

3. I am a child of God. I don't need to be super cool in the eyes of my coworkers or be the picture of awesomeness to strangers or be a world-renowned superstar because none of that matters. What matters is that God has claimed me for his own and has promised to do great things in me through him. I can bask in the love that he pours out on me and be content wherever he has me because he is really all that matters. Knowing this and putting it into action are two different things, and I would like to think that I have finally come to terms with the fact that I finally know this to be true. Next will come the hard part of constantly reminding myself that I do know it's true and continuing to be happy finding my identity in God. I am a fickle person. I have trouble sticking it out even when I know it's the best thing for me, and I know this will be very hard to do. It is super freeing to have finally figured it out in my brain though, and I feel like it's a good place to start.

4. I can't control any part of my life. No matter how hard I try, I will never be in control of my life. I'm not even in control of my body, and I'm intimately aware of it at all times. If I can't tell my body what to do, how can I expect to be able to control anything else in my life in a legitimate way? Not being in control of how things work out for me has always been the biggest hurdle for me on my way to God. I crave knowing what is going to happen and planning out each step so that I won't ever be surprised or hurt or sad or disappointed. I like to say that God is throwing me curveballs when something unexpected or bad happens, but the reality is that God isn't trying to mess me up just for the fun of it or to teach me a lesson. It was probably what he had planned all along and I was just too self-absorbed to wait patiently for it. It was unexpected for me because I refused to be ready for whatever he had planned and insisted on being ready for what I had planned.  If you are never looking for something, it will always be a surprise. I wasn't looking for God's plan because I was too focused on my own plan. And let me tell you, my plan always gets messed up. God is much better at charting the course of my life than I could ever be.

Throughout my Lenten discipline this year, lots of things came to me about what I need to continue working on in my relationship with God. Most of them relate back to this issue of control for me in one way or another, which means I have only scratched the surface of my identity as a control freak. Don't worry, just because Lent is over doesn't mean I have completed my discipline. I'm going to continue exploring my major issues and hopefully make some real progress, with God's help.