worry and control...

I used to think I was in control. That somehow, if I just made the right decisions and put myself in the right places, things would go my way. And with that control came a big dose of worry. Worry all the time. I spent countless hours, weeks, days, and months of my life worrying. Worrying about the things I was trying to control and worrying even more about the things I couldn't. But the funny thing about control and worry is that regardless of how much you think you do or don't have of the former, you'll find yourself spending too much time on the latter.

I think it's easy to blame it on genetics. To say something like, "Well, this just runs in my family so I can't help it." To assume that if you come from a long line of them, then you can't help but be one. Honestly, it's an easy out. That way, we don't have to take ownership of it or surrender and change our ways. It's who we are, right? Can't change family history. It was the hand you were dealt, and so you just have to manage that burden the best you can.

I really believed that. Worry and control was ingrained into my nature. It was a part of me that had been inherited and that was that. I couldn't help myself. I was born to worry and to be in control. Those two things really go hand in hand, after all. Doesn't our worry usually stem from feeling a lack of control? And so I worried about this and worried about that, and I worried about what might happen, what could happen, what should happen - and then it finally happened.

Sitting in an empty house feeling completely out of control, full of fear and worry and anxiety, I realized that I had no control. In fact, I had never been in control from the start. Of anything. Ever. And the older I get, and the more life I experience, I realize that I'll never be in control. None of us are. Because what happens when the company you've dedicated your life to is bought out and your job is eliminated? When your record of perfect health is ruined by by the spot on your lungs? What happens when the child you've hoped for has yet to show up? When the spouse you've committed your life to one day walks out? When you didn't see the car coming your way? When the flames rip through your home, leaving ashes in the place of all of your memories? What happens when the very things in which you thought you had control, you can no longer control?

"Cast all your cares on the Lord for He will sustain you." (Psalm 55:22)  All of your cares, all of your worries. All of things in which you're trying so hard to control. Give them to Jesus. Because you don't know what tomorrow holds. You don't know what happens until you turn the page. But He does. And it's not a surprise. It's not a shock that throws Him for a loop. Why? Because He is in control. Complete, absolute control. And that's not going to change. He always has been, and He always will be. And when we come to that realization, a weight is lifted as we understand that our job isn't to control our life, it's to live it. To look to Him, to trust Him, and to follow Him. We don't have to worry about figuring everything out or making sure it happens. From the moment when breathe in our first breath until the moment we breathe out our last, He'll take care of it all.



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