I am a Rock, That's My Long Islaaaand...

You can ask any of my friends from college and they will tell you that I will never admit to being drunk. If you ask me, I will inevitably tell you that I'm fine. And to be fair, I honestly mean it at the time. If I actually finally tell you that I'm drunk, I'm probably three sheets to the wind and the 5th is empty and it's time for us to all go home. 

The reason I'm explaining this somewhat mortifying fact about myself is because it's a really obvious example of how, most of the time, I don't like it when I'm not in control of myself. It's got nothing to do with controlling other people - I'm pretty easy going that way - but when it comes to myself and my actions and my life, I have a hard time letting go.

This is a spur of the moment, somewhat scatted entry, but I've just been reading and have a few thoughts I'd like to spill out into the blogosphere.

Tonight I've been looking up random Bible verses online, doing that thing a lot of us do when we don't know where to start: hoping that we'll haphazardly open the Bible and close our eyes and point to a page, or click a website link and that God will present the perfect Bible verse, and it will appear with a flash of light and bubbling harps from the heavens. And this perfect Bible verse will cut straight to our hearts and will be the exact answer we were looking for and all the saints and the angels in the clouds are rejoicing and at last, all of our problems have been solved.

9 times out of 10, the verse I end up with involves oxen. In a field. Somehow I doubt this is the perfect Bible verse for anyone. Except maybe oxen.

I continued clicking through until I found a site with a daily devotional. I'm pretty skeptical (have I mentioned that?) about the way modern Christianity seems to be represented and the resulting "language of Christianity" that I learned to speak in high school (you know, 'loving on" people and other bizarre phrases), and certain phrases of this language echoed through these devotionals until I could feel my face forming an incredibly unattractive but accurate "cringe" expression. Still, sometimes you have to let the bad in with the good and not take everything so seriously, and so I kept reading.

I read a devotional on unconditional love, one on grace, and another on humility. But as I was reading I was thinking more about how detached I feel from this world, and how going back to it is similar to reading a diary you wrote when you were 13; you recognize yourself in it, but you've outgrown that identity. After I read I sat back and thought about my relationship with God and how different that can be from a relationship with the Church. I have a relationship with God. I do not have, nor do I particularly want, a relationship with the Church. There are so many reasons behind this, and as a former choir-singing, worship-team-participating, youth-group-going person, I have no doubt that this will change many more times throughout my life.

All this to say, in an unpolished segue, that while I was thinking about it, I realized how easy it is to get trapped in your own mind and the way you think and worry and analyze and rationalize. And then you wonder why the timing and planning and events in your life seem so chaotic...and God's just sitting there rolling His eyes waiting for you to figure it out and realize that you're not letting Him control anything. Tonight He informed me that I'm trying to control so many things in my life, and inevitably when I do that, nothing works, so would I please stop doing that? I've been asking God for months why so many things in my life seem out of sync and so badly timed and messy. To be fair, things in my life have felt pretty put-together since New Years, but have spiraled quite fantastically in the last couple of months. I rolled my eyes, then I'm sure He rolled His eyes until I finally agreed to release my vice-like grip and stop trying to make my life fit into my own timing.

And all I can really say about this is that every time I've agreed to let God take control in His way and His timing, things have seemed to fall into place better than I ever could have planned. As it happens, one of my favourite Bible passages is Provers 3:5-7:

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart; never rely on what you think you know.

Remember the Lord in everything you do and He will show you the right way.

Never let yourself think that you are wiser than you are; 

simply obey the Lord and refuse to do wrong."

Maybe I'm not a rock. But can I still have the Long Island?

 - K