I crave order in my life. Everything should have a place and should always be returned to its location. My calendar is color-coded. I have a system for how I read books and do chores and plan meals. Some might even call me a control freak. I would say that I just prefer everything in life to be in its box.
The Lord blessed me with a family of pilers and ploppers. You know the kind. They come in and plop their backpacks here and their shoes over there. To them, order is piling all of the mail in random places across the house depending on the person who retrieved it.
I guess that I should have taken the hint that life doesn’t fit into a box. Relationships with people rarely go how you think that they should. And as Forrest would say, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.”
Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” He knows the plan because he sees the big picture, and he knows how he is preparing me everyday for that future and hope. The problem with his plan is that I don’t know it. I have the hardest time getting my brain to turn off and trust that the struggle of my today doesn’t lead to anything but more of the same struggle. I am constantly trying to figure my way out, which completely leaves out trusting God to lead me toward a hope.
This is not how God designed it to be. His word says in Psalms, in Matthew, in Isaiah, in Ephesians, and in countless other places that we can and should trust God with our burdens because he loves us. And again, I ask myself, “Why can’t I do this?” I want to, but I just constantly seem to return to putting God in a little box, only taking him out when I am in a deep, dark hole.
A few weeks ago, I decided that boxing God up wasn’t acceptable anymore. A friend told me about a new Journey Group called ReGeneration that was beginning for people recovering from life’s struggles of all kind. So far, I have learned that I need to take God out of the box each hour and consult him. Maybe I will eventually be able to go an entire day leaning and trusting that he is in control, and that it is good for him to be in control. For now, I just keep asking the Lord to remind me of verses like Romans 8:28, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” I love God, and I know that his perfect love for me doesn’t go in a box.