I have the hardest problem in my life: letting go of control over my life. The Christian ethos is to give God complete control of your life, and I recognize this set of facts clearly:

o When I let God have control of my life, my life is pretty good.

o When my life is good, I then think that I can Really Do It By Myself, and I seize control again.

o When I try to control my life, my life begins to really suck.

o When it gets really bad, I realize that I’m overcontrolling, and I go back to the top of the list.

It’s really frustrating–it’s an equilibrium system from the outside, but on the inside, it’s quite the maelstrom of frustration and … not insanity, which is the first word that came to mind, but … oh, I don’t have a good word for it.

I recognize where I am in my life: I want to settle down, find a woman, get married, and start that chapter of my life. I am treating my graduate studies at UAH as my second opportunity to be an undergraduate, free from all the frustrations of engineering classes [if frustrated by actual engineering work, usually on a daily basis] and open to new ideas. It’s been quite liberating, but then again, I’ve been seizing control of my life.
You know, anytime I think about it, I come to this single answer to the question of, “What about getting married?” My answer is, “You know, I’d really like to be married before I go to seminary in four years. I think that a pastor needs to be married, and I know the horror stories of single pastors and trying to find wives.”

How ludicrous is that? I am setting a timeline on my life–again, wresting control from God. I am also setting an ultimatum, of sorts–I’m not going to seminary until I’m married. Again, that’s me trying to assert control, not letting God decide what’s best for me in His infinite wisdom.

Writing all this down makes me want to bang my head on my desk. I’m afraid, though, that I’d dent my forehead, so I won’t. Instead, let me quote Bebo Norman from his new album, Myself When I Am Real:

Tonight I want a life
Where the faces are the same most every day
Tonight I want a wife
To sit with me and watch our children play
All the world between us
Watching the years fade away
And when the laughing’s done … we’ll watch the trees stand still

“Where the Trees Stand Still”, © 2002 New Spring Publiching Inc. / Applestreet Music / ASCAP

A beautiful lyric … but it’s really evocative of the struggle between our needs and our wants. I have this want for a wife–someone to share my life with–that’s quite strong and profound. But I’m mistaking the want for a need … and that’s clouding the issue. A relationship with Christ is what I well and truly need. Everything else flows from that.