Considering Responsibility and Control

My friend, the Jollyblogger, has been commenting on his unexpected journey as a cancer patient.  He says some very good things about what he has learned and the difficulty he has experienced.

One thing he mentions is the realization that so much is out of your hands.  We like to think we are control of large parts of our destiny (I’ve taken too many tests for job openings that expect you to answer that success is the result of ONLY hard work).  I can identify with that sense of powerlessness, that lack of control, in my own set of circumstances.  Mine are different- I’m not facing the possibility of death.  But there are some incredibly unattractive alternatives encircling me.

I have little to no control over the outcomes as I search for a new position.  My fate, seemingly, is in the hands of others.  I can’t control pastoral search committees.  I can’t control human resource departments.  I appear to be at the mercy of other sinners who are just as inconsistent as myself.

I’m not called to be in control, but to be responsible.  Surely, no search committee will call me to be their pastor if I don’t apply for that position.  The same goes locally as I attempt to make ends meet while searching for a new pastorate.  I must take the time to fill out forms, send out e-mails, look on the internet.  I must then WAIT (and wait, and wait- while continuing to follow other leads).

It is easy to feel abandoned in this process.  I reflect on a comment made by Tim Keller in a DMin course on preaching- Jesus is not asking you to do anything He hasn’t already done.  I’m called to trust and obey.  Jesus obeyed perfectly, and entrusted Himself to the Father.  He was abandoned for 3 days in the grave.  I might experience something that certainly feels like that.  But just as the Father raised Him from the dead, I expect God to deliver me in the fulness of time.

God shows up on time, which by our reckoning is far too late.  He shows up, often, in a way that reveals our utter weakness and hopelessness apart from Him.  Part of me glories in that because I want God to receive glory.  Part of me doesn’t because it means I have to live with great suffering in the meantime.  God’s goodness and faithfulness cannot be understood to mean that life will be easy and carefree.  It is in these difficult, trying, nearly crushing moments when we truly experience His goodness and faithfulness. 

The Psalmist often waited, and suffered, before God acted.  James 5 speaks of the fervent, or persistent, prayer of the righteous man availing much.  This is the persistent widow- repeatedly coming to ask the same thing.  Will I give up or keep asking?  Will I succumb to fatalism or continue to trust?

Perhaps God is teaching me a lesson in compassion.  Often, people like us aren’t compassionate unless we suffer greatly.  We think people can pull themselves up by their bootstraps until we realize by experience that sometimes people don’t have bootstraps.

I don’t presume to know God’s great lesson(s) as my wife and I walk this rough patch of road.  But, His rod and staff- they comfort me.  Though I struggle with fear and unbelief, I keep returning to gospel promises.  Though I am not in control of my circumstances, He who is in control of them is good, and faithful.  His control includes my responsibility.  It undergirds my often seemingly vain efforts, but to abandon responsibility is to essentially abandon hope and faith.  And that is something worse than death.