Beyond Our Control

Do you ever find yourself existing in the space between the life you are comfortably living and the unknown of the future that you’re longing to move into?  Maybe you are there right now. It’s a feeling of knowing you’re ready to step out of your comfort zone and not look back but you are completely unsure of how it is all going to unfold. We can plan and prepare and yet It’s really all beyond our control, isn’t it?

I am a planner and a list maker to the extreme. Yet when push comes to shove I know in my heart that I do not have ultimate control of my life. If you’ve not been in a place in life where God stepped in and squashed all of your well-laid plans, then it’s coming. I’ve been there and I can tell you it’s quite a humbling experience. You know the phrase “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him about your plans”. There’s not a lot of security in the unknown unless we trust that God has got us. So ease up on the planning and controlling and trust that God is there.

If I’m being vulnerable, I’d say that in the past I’ve spent large chunks of time living in an obsessively comfortable state of mind and felt things were going my way a lot more than not. So many familiar things helped make me feel safe - same job, same church, same kids school, same town, same house for many years. Then things changed suddenly. God moved big.

It was nearly an overnight shift in mental focus, where all I wanted was for things to be different. I had a fresh perspective and an unexplainable urge to do things I had never thought about before. Sell our home? Sure! Leave my job? It’s time. Build a new house in this economy? Why not! I needed the experience of these changes and while I didn’t go searching for them, they kind of bumped into me in divine ways. Opportunities to step away, make a move, and clear my head were all welcomed in my weary mind.

As I’ve shared in other posts, we bought land in a tiny town of 1,000 people that many people around here don’t realize even exists. We sold our beautiful home and moved into our camper for six months so we could be on site while building a new home. As if this change wasn’t emotional enough, I had said goodbye to a 20-year career with a company that I could have never dreamed I would have gotten to be a part of, much less had the opportunity to be cofounder.

None of this was possible without God opening so many doors. I have realized God only knows where my life will head next. He knows what is best for each and every one of us. The gift we each have is the ability to reflect on where life has taken us over the last year, 5 years, 10 years, and more. What can you list as three of the biggest life events that’s you didn’t go searching for but felt let into? Think on those and be thankful today.