I admit it!
I like control.
Love it, actually. Crave it! Want it!
Need it! (Excuse me as I stop to
straighten the bar stools around my kitchen table.)
The desire for control is my daily struggle. After all, who better to trust in than myself.
Right?
I totally get the Little Red Hen’s point of view – I’ll do
it myself! At least then it’ll get done…
and get done the way I want!
Ahh… but who am I to control the chaos of the world around
me? It is impossible… and the worries of
it drive me to the brink.
Then my Creator reminds me to look up. He invites me to fall back into His care and
relinquish the control into His capable hands.
So I look up. I
look to the One who created all things.
I look to the One who formed an earth that is 25,000 miles in
circumference. It weighs 13,227,735,730,800,000,000,000,000 pounds (I don’t even know how to say that).
And yet it hangs in empty space!
It spins at 1000 miles an hour with perfect balance in an
orbit of 580 million miles… and does so at just the right angle to create the
seasons we have.
And I wanted to be in control?
I look around the earth today and think I have a better
take on how history should play out. I
argue with God Almighty when He leads in a different direction. I doubt His wisdom.
Yet He is the One who created each of us with a brain that
has 100 thousand billion electrical connections (read that out loud)- in other
words, more electrical connections than all the electrical appliances on the
face of the earth!
Yeah. Ok!
Not only that, our brains can fit in a quart jar and
operate for eighty-some years on ten watts of power fueled by chocolate and
Pepsi!
I question where He is, why I don’t see His hand at work, and
what He is doing, yet creation daily reminds us that He is a God of order and
accuracy.
For example:
-the eggs of the potato bug hatch in 7 days
-the eggs of a canary - 14 days
-those of the barnyard hen - 21 days
-the eggs of geese hatch in 28 days
-the eggs of the mallard - 35 days
-the parrot and the ostrich? - 42 days
(Notice, they are all divisible by seven, the number of days in a
week!)
We see His accuracy in produce:
-Each watermelon has an even number of strips on the rind.
-Each orange has an even number of segments.
-Each ear of corn has an even number of rows.
-Each stalk of wheat has an even number of grains.
-Every bunch of bananas has on its lowest row an even number of
bananas, and each row decreases by one, so that one row has an even number and
the next row an odd number.
Shall I go on?
The waves of the sea roll in on shore twenty-six to the minute - in all
kinds of weather!
Or how about this?
If the average person had all the space squeezed out of him, he’d be
lost on the head of a pin and occupy just one one-hundred millionth of a cubic
inch.
So much for thinking we’re something.
Wow.
Isaiah 40 says it best (read this out loud. You’ll love it!):
Who has scooped
up the ocean
in His two
hands,
or measured the
sky
between His thumb
and little finger?
Who has put all
the earth’s dirt in one of His baskets,
Weighed each
mountain and hill?
Who could ever
have told God what to do
or taught Him
His business?
What expert
would He have gone to for advice?
What school
would He attend to learn justice?
What God do you
suppose might have taught Him what He knows,
Showed Him how things work?
Why, the nations
are but a drop in a bucket,
A mere smudge on
a window…
All the nations
add up to simply nothing before Him—
less than
nothing is more like it.
A minus…
Have you not
been paying attention?
Have you not
been listening?
Haven’t you
heard these stories all your life?
Don’t you
understand the foundation of all things?
God sits high
above the round ball of earth.
The people look
like mere ants.
He stretches out
the skies like a canvas—
yes, like a tent
canvas to live under.
He ignores what
all the princes say and do.
The rulers of
the earth count for nothing.
Princes and
rulers don’t amount to much.
Like seeds
barely rooted, just sprouted,
They shrivel
when God blows on them.
Like flecks of
chaff, they’re gone with the wind…
“So—who is like
Me?
Who holds a
candle to me?” says The Holy.
Look at the
night skies:
Who do you think
made all this?
Who marches this
army of stars out each night,
counts them off,
calls each by
name
—so magnificent!
so powerful!—
…and never
overlooks a single one?
Why would you
ever complain, O Jacob,
or, whine,
Israel, saying,
“God has lost track of me.
He doesn’t care
what happens to me”?
Don’t you know
anything?
Haven’t you been
listening?
God doesn’t come
and go.
God lasts.
He’s Creator of
all you can see or imagine.
He doesn’t get
tired out,
Doesn’t pause to
catch His breath.
And He knows everything,
inside and out.
My God calculated all these things.
And this same God is the One who has planned your life and mine.
So why should I worry? Why do I
fear? Why must I white-knuckle my way
through life?
His wisdom, His plans… His control far exceeds any puny efforts I
might attempt to navigate my way through this world.
His control doesn’t come and go.
It is accurate.
It is sure.
And it lasts.
