The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become - because He made us. He invented us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be... It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.
C.S. Lewis
If we had been in the place of Adam and Eve, what would we have tried to do? I know what I would have done. I would have tried to come up with my own plan for a “do-over.” I would have tried to set things right and make it all good again. When I take a good look at my life, and of those trying to do life around me, that seems to be our plan of choice— “arranging” for life.
If I can just control the variables around me, control the people around me, time the traffic lights so they are always green for me, put everyone else in the slow line at the grocery store, make my kids do what I say when I say it, have my wife ready for romance the moment I look her way, then I would have a full and fulfilling life, right? Nothing ever breaks, everyone always likes my ideas, I get what I want, when I want it, where I want it, and in the right proportion and at the perfect temperature. That’s what we all want, right?
We’ve even come up with our own set of rules to govern this self-arranging system:
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
If it is to be, it’s up to me.
Do unto others before they do unto you.
The crazy thing is that everyone is running his or her own system, and it results in far more chaos than it does any semblance of harmony. We already broke one life, but surely, we can fix it by making a Plan B for ourselves.
But sadly, that isn’t the case.
How do you control your life to arrange and make life work for you?
What do you think Jesus is inviting you to do in those very places of control?
What is he speaking to you that lets you know you can surrender and trust Him instead?
An excerpt from Search and Rescue.
