Control

I have had quite a few comments and conversations after my last post so I thought that I’d follow up on the whole theme of control. Tenth Avenue North have a great song called ‘Control’. The subtitle is ‘Somehow You Want Me’. When I first heard the song I thought that they were mixing up two different themes, but on listening to the song again and reflecting on the idea of control, I think I might understand what they were trying to say.

Here I am

All my intentions

All my obsessions

I want to lay them all down

In Your hands

Only Your love is vital

Though I’m not entitled

Still You call me Your child

As I said in my last blog, I believe that we are wired to take control of our lives. The western world view really encourages us to ‘look after number one’, ‘dream it and you can make it happen’ etc etc. But is that what God has created us for? Don’t get me wrong, we do have a responsibility to look after ourselves but I’m not sure that is what our primary focus should be.

I’ve had plans

Shattered and broken

Things I have hoped in

Fall through my hands

You have plans

To redeem and restore me

You’re behind and before me

Oh, help me believe

We all find ourselves with shattered dreams and disappointments. Some of of these are soul-deep wounds. We’re left with intense anger, frustration, sadness and at times despair. What do we do with these feelings? I believe we need to acknowledge these feelings, they are valid and very real. I have had to go through a lot of counseling to work through various disappointments in my life, to deal with anger and being let down. I’ve also had to learn to forgive. I’ve realized that forgiveness is crucial in moving on, I don’t have to keep dragging the baggage of my past around with me. The relationship may or may not be restored, but forgiveness is vital. I’ll explore this more in future blogs.

God You don’t need me

But somehow You want me

Oh, how You love me

Somehow that frees me

To take my hands off of my life

And the way it should go

God You don’t need me

But somehow You want me

Oh, how You love me

Somehow that frees me

To open my hands up

And give You control

I give You control

When we look at who God is and what He has done for us, we realize just how small and insignificant we really are. He created the universe, and spoke it all into being. Yet we feel that we know best, our plans surely are the only way forward! We don’t always understand what God is doing in a situation, and we might end up getting in the way because we can’t see the big picture

I love the thought in this song that God doesn’t need us, yet He wants us. He wants you just as you are. He loves You just as you are. I’m not a vital cog in the plans He has for the world, yet He desperately wants me to be involved in His plans. When we realign our perspective it takes so much pressure off us. Someone bigger and greater than us knows the whole picture, and all we need to do is just take the next step forward. We don’t need to have the whole path mapped out.

Oh, You want me

Somehow You want me

The King of Heaven wants me

So this world has lost it’s grip on me

Many things in life feel so random. The health nut who gets cancer, the strong Christian influencer who dies young, the marriage that seemed so strong that falls apart, the child with a life threatening illness. How can God allow this to happen, we cry out. For some of us our faith and foundations are shaken to the core. I can’t answer the question of why this happens, and I don’t have answers for a good God who allows bad things to happen. What I can share is that for me it is during the trials when our faith sinks deep, head knowledge becomes heart knowledge and we can experience the God who meets us in our darkness. The God who carries us when we can’t go on, who loves us when we don’t deserve it. The God of the universe who still wants me even though He doesn’t need me.

I heard of a beautiful image recently. God is painting our lives in all sorts of rich colours. When we try and take control, all we end up doing is smearing the painting, drawing over God’s perfect design. If we let Him do the painting, the end result will be breathtaking. Fortunately He is also a master in turning our mistakes into masterpieces. The times when we try to scribble over the painting, God will use to add new depth to our painting. We need to remind ourselves during the times when things don’t make sense, during the darkness, that God is still painting. All He wants for us is to trust Him to turn our lives into a masterpiece. We can’t see the whole picture yet. But we can trust that He is using everything that happens to us to create beauty.

https://itunes.apple.com/za/album/control-somehow-you-want-me/1130475730?i=1130476177

Watch the lyric video for Control (Somehow you want me) by Tenth Avenue North

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