Control

Life is a beautiful, hard, chaotic, uncontrollable thing.

Do you ever look at the clouds? I feel like they encompass this to the fullest.  The other day I was driving, watching lightning strike in various pockets throughout the sky. You could almost feel the anger and tension. I think back to earlier that day; there were blue skies that almost made my soul as clear as the sight of them. Later on the sun was peaking through the clouds and finally broke through only to be hidden once again by a batch of clouds a few minutes later. It was those very same clouds that made the sunset so beautiful that night. Isn’t that exactly how our life feels? There are the cloudy mornings and colors and storms, and clear skied afternoons and somehow it all swirls together to always be beautiful at the end of it all.

Even the sky that lies above us reminds us that we live in a world of seasons and changes. Our world lies far outside of our control. But it always ends up beautiful if we let it go. God's goodness is a promise.

I think the more and more we try to grab hold of control, the more and more our bodies will bring worry to our souls, for we weren’t built for it.

Don’t get me wrong. I think we have free will. In fact, I’m starting to think that we have so much free will. More than you could imagine. In it, we can try to control our world, and we might even be successful at it to a certain degree, but we will always in the end, find ourselves worn and stressed, trying to accomplish something we just weren’t built for. I think we’ll find we didn’t like the story we were writing for ourselves anyway.

When we let go and obey, abundance is the only outcome. For when we do finally give up control, it’s freeing.

Life may not always go our way, but it will go his way, and that is so much better.
Things won’t need to go our way anymore, because our souls will be satisfied. There's a joy on the inside. 

Things can be going terribly wrong, but at the same time, terribly right.

The other day I was talking to an atheist and was reminded of why I actually came back to Jesus. Knowing Jesus, studying the Bible, and following God has given me the most accurate way to interact with reality; in my relationships, finances, studies, family, and heart. I couldn’t run from it, it simply is true.
I’m at this point where I feel no pressure to play the game of life anymore.

I am going to obey God. There’s simply no other way. I can try to control things, change my destinations, or figure it all out, but in my few 20 years all that has done has left me heartbroken, frustrated, and put a weight on my shoulders that couldn’t lift. I have let my identity be crushed by crying over friendships I couldn’t keep, ending up in the wrong places, and making all the mistakes.
But the reality is, I gave my life to Jesus. I gave him my will.

I no longer have to carry the weight of a life well lived on my shoulders. He does.

When life goes wrong, God's making it right. 
When we've been wrong, he's covered our tracks. 
With obedience there’s abundance of life on the inside, I’m starting to experience it.
I simply get to listen each morning, and do what he says, no matter how absurd.
A life with God is going to hard, challenging, breathtaking, beautiful, and impossible, but I realize we wouldn’t want it any other way. 

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