This blog now contains over 580 posts. The post below first appeared on September 8 2014.  I am sharing it again because it gets at the crux of what it means to surrender to God, something that is crucial in 2017

Recently I spoke with someone who had just walked through a major misstep in life which has consequences for the future for several people. The person said, “I just didn’t see that coming.”

I asked, “And if you had seen it coming, what would you have done?”

The person responded, “This mess would never have happened.”

This conversation adds another perspective to my understanding of our craving for control of our lives and the depth of the illusion that we actually have it. The reasoning goes: if we can see something coming, if we can imagine it happening, we can control the outcome.  If we only could become smart enough to see everything, or imagine everything, we would never have problems. That is, if we could only be God, we would have nothing to worry about.

This attitude also comes out as: “If I can’t imagine it, it can’t be true.” People often angrily struggle with the concept of a “loving God allowing evil.” To them this is an oxymoron or a paradox. They cannot accept that something can be true if they can’t imagine it or understand it.  It is so troubling that they are willing to throw God under the bus.

Here is another example: “How could God let that happen? I prayed but God didn’t answer my prayer. He’s not the good and loving God you said he was!” Never mind that the person praying was demanding that her solution to the problem was what God should do – and no other solution would be a good one.

 My “if only” is: If only we would give up our need to be God, we could rest easier. If we put God back on the throne, we won’t have to worry because we live in God’s unshakable kingdom. Putting ourselves in the center of the universe, listening to the same serpent Adam and Eve heard, is the fast track to a life outside of the Kingdom of God and eternal misery.