Control.
How seductive and elusive you are.
You lie and tell me I can do it all.
It will be safer if I’m in charge.
So I scramble and scrap to acquire
The prize only fools desire.
Never leaving anything to chance.
I tighten my grasp on your fading illusions,
Only to find I’m left with confusion.
I realize I never had you from the start.
Time to relinquish and hand over my heart.
Four weeks ago, my husband broke a bone in his foot. After first making sure he would be okay, my second thought was, “But what’s going to happen to my basement?” We are a year into a basement remodel that was only supposed to take six months. After living through numerous construction projects over the last 10 years, you would think I would be more accustomed to the numerous delays that seem to go hand and hand with this business.
The difference is I am personally invested this time. This project involves making a pottery studio for me. Pottery has been a part of my life since high school but never have I had my kiln and wheel in the same space. We finally bought a house that has the perfect space for my dream studio. The only problem was that space was an unfinished basement.
After a year of saving money and slowly chipping away at the numerous projects, Zach was finally to the point of hanging lights and installing outlets. I could almost smell the drywall that was to come next! A pottery studio doesn’t need fancy flooring so once the drywall is done, I’m moving in! The finish line of this project was within my grasp only to have it come to a complete stop.
I could feel all the stifled creative juices in me boiling over into resentment. I was angry, disappointed, and overwhelmed. I’m not going to lie, I did spend a brief moment trying to figure out how I could make a ladder safe for Zach to climb with only one foot. It was only a brief moment and my better senses did take over.
I had to face reality. No amount of self-sufficiency was going to finish this project. I was not in control, no matter how much I wanted to be. I don’t know why I have always taken such comfort in the illusion of control.
An illusion.
I can block off time in the calendar, gather resources, be prepared, and still I cannot determine how things will turn out. Sure, I could try and force my agenda by hiring professionals, but at what cost? Not only would the financial cost be great in charging ahead, but so would the count of pedestrian casualties.
I’ve learned this lesson the hard way. Control may be comforting in the moment, but it costs us a great deal. It may cost us our health, our relationships, or even our ability to be used by God.
Several years ago, God began to open my eyes to my issue with control and led me to some verses in the psalms.
“Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat— for he grants sleep to those he loves” Psalm 127:1-2.
If there is one thing I hate more than losing control, it’s wasting time. I don’t want to spend all of my resources and time if it’s going to be in vain. I don’t want my agenda pushed through if that agenda is not God’s best. What good is having a pottery studio, if I’ve missed God’s purpose in my life?
I’m building far more than a house. I have four little lives that are watching my every move. They are looking at me to see what trust looks like, to see if I do what I say I believe. In the end, it’s what I have built in their lives that is going to matter, not how many things I’ve checked off my to-do list.
Moses got it. He knew that if the Lord wasn’t with him, then it wasn’t worth doing. God told Moses to take the Israelites into the Promised Land. God was going to keep His promise that He made to Abraham, but He told Moses that He would not be going with them for fear He would destroy this stubborn group of people.
That wasn’t enough for Moses. A completed agenda was not the greatest goal. He knew that God was the real treasure, not the land. In Exodus 33:15-16, Moses appealed to God.
“If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
God was pleased with Moses, and as a result, Moses beheld God’s glory.
Glory is at stake if we don’t learn to let go of control.
Unless the Lord builds it, it isn’t worth doing.