Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Can't Control?

What do you do when you face something you simply cannot change?

This is where I have found myself over the last week and into this week:  a situation where, no matter what I do, I simple cannot make everything that is supposed to happen.

I've done what you're supposed to do, of course:  maximized my time, delegated, working harder, made my request up the appropriate chain.  Still, I find myself in the exactly the same position: I cannot change anything.  The part that is bothersome, of course, is the impending sense of doom that is hovering over my head, knowing that there is nothing more I can do even as I fear that something will occur.

So what does one do when this happens?  Do what you can?  See above.  Scream about it?  Not  a terribly useful exercise.  Verbally complain to others?  There is no faster way to be mentally shut out by others.  Wait for something to go wrong?  Maybe viscerally satisfying of course, but hardly a problem solving method and certainly an attention getter in the wrong sense.

So (if one may ask) what's left?

Turn it over to God.

It seems counterintiuitive, and I'm not even really sure I completely understand what it's supposed to do.  But the reality is that this is my remaining option:  to turn this over to God completely.  Do what I can, of course - but then not exercise in any sort of "bad" behavior such that would discredit me or God.

It scares me, this turning over.  It's not something I can really control - in fact, the biggest control I have to exercise is over myself (which is all I ever had control of anyway).  I don't necessarily see how yielding my own rights in this matter (anger, pride, a sense of "told you so") will resolve any of the issues at hand.

But maybe I don't have to.  Maybe this insistence that I have - that I've always had - on completely understanding ever aspect of something before I engage is wrong.  One does not understand love before one is in it, and one does not appreciate what it truly means to be a parent until one does it.

We say "God is in control".  Do we really believe it?

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