15 metres from the ground. Each heart beat rattling my very
core, adrenaline hurtling through my veins and staring out at tree tops stretching
out in front of me yet hardly appreciating their beauty I step out into the cool
crisp air and free fall.
I don’t think that anyone could, hand on heart, say that
they have never had the experience of feeling out of control. Having to let go
and resign yourself to the fact that no matter how much you want to, you cannot
and will not be able to do anything to change what is going to happen.
If you think about it is there ever a time when you could truly
say that you are in complete control?
My recent encounter at Go Ape to celebrate the forthcoming wedding
of a good friend brought this reality home to me. So much of the time we live
our lives pretending that we have got it sorted, that we are the ones in the
driving seat determining the course we walk. And if I’m having one of those days where everything seems
to be going wrong (i.e. not the way that I think that it should be going) my
inner control freak surrenders and my attitude jumps to the other extreme thinking
that I am lost in space, free falling without direction and without hope.
But these beliefs are steeped in self-deceiving lies. Both
are just as misleading as the other. The first sets out to glorify ourselves by
congratulating whatever we do manage to achieve. Essentially our pride wants to
believe that we can exist independently, and we want everyone to know that we
can do this successfully. It is driven by a deep desire to be valued for being
able to keep it together. We want to live without God. The second again, contrary
to what we may think, keeps the mindset that we are the ones who have the
control because as soon as things go wrong immediately all is lost. If we can’t
get the glory then we cannot allow anyone else to be the one in control. Whenever
we think like this we have lost sight of something great, someone greater.
Jesus said ‘Apart from me you can do nothing’
The beautiful thing about the gospel is that it actually
satisfies our desires felt by the two mindsets but in a much better way. God
created us for himself, for his glory. Our purpose is to bring glory to God and
not ourselves. But we rebelled against God and wanted to be in control of our
own lives, and in doing this we messed things up utterly and completely. But
God, in his great mercy, didn’t give up on us. He didn’t give us up to free
fall to oblivion. Instead he loves us, even in the same way that he loves his
son – we are valued by God far more than we will ever be by man because of what
we’ve done. God loves us inspite of who we really are, and whatever we do or
don’t do. He demonstrated this to us by paying the highest price to buy us back
– his only son Jesus. In doing this he provided a way for us to restore the
broken relationship with God. He has dealt with our sinfulness and freed us
from our unfulfilling ways and restored meaning to our lives. When we accept
his offer of relationship we are able to see that there is one in control. That
there is meaning to everything and our lives are headed somewhere.
It may not be in the way that we think. It may be complete
opposite to what we think. It’s definitely not going to be the easy way. But at
the end of it all there is a hope that we will meet God one day and we will be
transformed from our broken selves. We will be like our God and we will truly
see and appreciate his greatness.
Seeing as this post does not really fit the specification for the blog I will part with this final sentiment....CAKE.
