Have you ever heard the saying, "If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans?"
Well, over a week ago someone said to me, "Send me your newest blog when it's ready."
And I, confident in my ability to foresee the future, replied, "Oh it will be up tomorrow! I'll make sure I send it on to you." Laugh. Laugh.
It is now nine days later. Like the pastor said during his talk on Sunday, "What makes you think you were ever in control?"
And that is really a very good question.
I come from a long line of controlees...people who were wired to "keep it together"...a direct descendent of William Bradford who took the ultimate control and left the Old World across the Pond to establish a colony in the New World....
A Swamp Yankee by heritage...born with a bootstrap in hand and an ingrained sense of how to pull oneself up by said bootstrap on a daily basis.
The thing about bootstraps is that the more you pull on them, the stronger your boot-strap-pulling-muscles grow. It becomes second nature to pull, pull, pull. After awhile, you don't even realize you are pulling anymore.
But eventually you do realize you are tired...very, very tired. And pulling gets more and more difficult. But you can't imagine ever letting go. Pulling is the only life you have ever known...how would life go on without your pulling?
And in that desperate moment God, in His infinite mercy, looks down upon you and plants in you a hunger for rest, which being the good controlee you are, only means you amp up your need to pull harder and make that rest-thing happen by golly!
Rest? Got it! Pull, pull, pull!
So God, in even greater mercy, steps up the trials and tribulations in your life. And you pull harder and harder...and the cycle goes on and on and on...
Until one day you can't pull anymore. And exhausted you let go, not seeing God in the midst of it, just believing that you must have failed. If you had held on just a little longer...pulled a little harder...all these trials and tribulations would not be happening.
Paul has a name for this merciful intervention by God..."The Gift of a Handicap"...
