“When you feel internally out of control, you try and control the externals.”

These were the words of a friend who was a counselor said to me over ten years ago.

So much of my journey has been focused on how bad I was as a result of the fall of humanity and thus shaming myself for how much of a failure I was. This manifested itself in loving others poorly and always thinking I needed to prove something in my service efforts or feel a sense of safety and security from others. My interactions with my friends on the margins was driven out of a lack in me and thus led to a lot of burn out. It was not motived by being the beloved of God.

Here’s the problem; even though I get the main idea of God moving really slow in the work of reconciliation. The false self wants reconciliation to happen now, in my time, with my agenda and so that I can control it. I get really frustrated at the God who moves three miles an hour. It’s how my whiteness manifests itself. It wants to fix things now and on my agenda.

The ironic thing is that Jesus, who is the savior of the world, wasn’t even trying to be the savior or everyone and every circumstance. Early on in Mark’s gospel it says in 1:35, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”

Jesus embraced his limits and we are called to do the same. Embracing our limits allows us to then fully be the person God’s called us to be in the world, thus allowing us to love freely. This is the beauty of the Sabbath that God gives us. It slows us down for a whole day to breathe and to be reminded that redemption, ministry, life working is not up to us and our frantic activity. 

If the goal for our relationships are based on, “giving and receiving”, from Philippians 4, then we learn to not only give, but to receive as well. If we are God’s beloved children, we don’t have to be in control of others or circumstances and can now receive from those we believe we should be giving too.

Who is Christ trying to serve you through today?

What control do you need to give up today to learn to receive from others?

This is what the wilderness does. This is what silence and being with God does, it forces us to face what’s going on deep inside of us. It forces us to confront the ugliness that is lurking beneath the surface of our lives. And as the dearly beloved children of God, we are called to confront the truth of what's happening inside of us and not ignore it. 

Because my goodness was tied to what I could produce. Recently I was discussing this with my wife, Adrienne and she said, “The gift that God gave us, was never meant to be a source of identity.” I believe that we struggle with this cookie epidemic because we are loving and serving out of our family of origin.

God created us for glory to love freely with no strings attached. He does the work in us before he does the work through us. We are able to love freely because God’s love just pours out through us when we acknowledge that God delights in us. 

The false self in us longs for the approval and validation of others. When we don’t feel affirmed and approved by God the Father who’s uniquely created us, we then go off our Island of Peace in our souls to try and find it in other things, namely people.

Our American culture has so impacted our way of living and the way we follow Jesus that we really don’t want to confront what’s really going on inside of us. Social media has so influenced our way of thinking that we don’t want to be real with each other. We always want to present our best side. When asked how we’re doing, many of us put on a mask and say we’re fine, not realizing that fine means; frustrated, insecure, neurotic and emotional.