It troubles me that so many people do not have a strong, real, personal sense of the presence of God within them and around them. And I wonder why?

But as I was driving to work this morning at 5 o’clock this insight came.

Control.

Modern symbol of control

Modern symbol of control

If I demanded and insisted that my wife act exactly as I commanded, to do things exactly the way I ordered and lived with disappointment every time she didn’t live up to “my” expectations I have a certainty within me that our relationship would cease to exist.

I hear people pray, telling God what to do. Heal this person now. Give me a job now.

I encounter people who can’t experience God at work in their lives because they keep looking for God to do it in a way consistent with their creed or doctrine, or the way someone taught is the way God acts.

In so many places I find people who have an image of God (as wimpy love or a meany or Father or Mother or distant or as Judge) and when God does not slaughter gays or wipe out Muslims or save everyone to heaven or if God should bless Baptists and Orthodox Christians alike they get disgusted with “God” and wonder why God has fallen silent or doesn’t answer their prayer as per the request made.

GodInControlReally, that’s as silly as a person buying a ticket to travel by train and arriving at 9 when the train left at 7 and then getting enraged as to why the train didn’t wait for them!

Living with Jesus means travelling life caught up the arms of the Almighty, rejecting the worry of every “what if” you can think of and finding a peace that transcends human rational thought in the midst of the storms of life.

Let God be God on divine terms on heavenly timetables on a map that never leads you astray.