DISCLAIMER: what follows is radical self disclosure…be forewarned!
I think its about time I acknowledge something….one of the greatest hindrances to experiencing true community and connectedness for me right now are my desires and insecurities around ‘taking control’ and feeling ultimately responsible for pretty much everything in my life – the tasks and things that legitimately ARE my responsibilities and ALL the things (and people) that aren’t.
This has been brought to light recently through several experiences at work and in my interactions with our staff team. We are often joking around about my ‘control freakness’ or my ‘angry badger face’ - when they all know I am thinking something and want to critique or challenge.
I am currently reading a book called For Women Only, based on a survey of 800 men and their inner lives. I was loitering around a used bookstore in Cochrane on Saturday and discovered this little hardcover; right next to a Sylvia Browne book on communicating with the dead in the ‘inspirational’ section. It was a tough call on which book to choose – went with the men one. I like men. I like communicating with men…living ones.
What started off as an enlightening read and reality check for me on the ways men feel respected and how to truly value them quickly morphed into a reflective journaling session on my life and some of the ways I devalue community and true connectedness with some of my ongoing and repetitive behaviors of control and – here it is – ultimate lack of trust in God and others.
Does anyone else have trouble truly trusting another? EVEN when- for example, I know that other is MORE capable of a task or challenge than I am? EVEN when I know I am the most incompetent one in the room. EVEN when I know I am absolutely POWERLESS – I would still rather be the one making the judgment call, the decision, giving my two cents – even though the exchange rate on those two cents garners it worthless!
Two questions. What compels this behavior? And what could change it? The first question requires ridiculous amounts of psychoanalysis best left for another time and place. First thing that came to mind regarding the second question? Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5).
OH – the JOY of submission! I never thought I would write those words! Oh the DISCIPLINE of submission! An act of the will to CHOOSE the way, thought, value, wisdom of another.
I’m not remotely ready to tackle the submission thought in the context of covenantal marriage as Paul continues to write in Ephesians. I need to sit with this ‘submission to one another’ for a bit longer before it’s put into the marriage context – I need to contemplate this ‘reverence’ for Christ. The motivation behind the behaviour.
Why submit to one another? Out of reverence for Christ – ‘whom’ (and here is my latest ongoing 2011 mantra) ‘for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame…’ Why? Because of what he’s done? Because of his example? Because of his redemptive purposes that he began whilst here walking in my shoes?
Maybe its because I need a ‘big dog’ to tell me what to do sometimes. Maybe, its because sometimes, I just need to let go. Its like Paul pulled out the ultimatum, put all his cards on the table; why submit? Because of JESUS. The Alpha and the Omega. The beginning and the end. The bright morning star. The Messiah, Savior, Creator. Because the HOLY TRINITY itself IS. Because the very breath you breathe is utterly dependent on another – because my very existence, my past, present and future, is in the hands of another. I am not my own…I have been bought at a price. Because the best place to be is in the scarred hands of the resurrected king of the universe. Not me holding him, rather HIM holding me.
Ok. That’s it. Self disclosure over. 2 cents worth given…again. Grace and mercy. Again.
