Losing control

“So I commended enjoyment 

because there is nothing better for man under the sun than to eat, drink, and enjoy himself, for this will accompany him in his labor during the days of his life 

that God gives him under the sun.”

Ecclesiastes 8:15

I've been feeling flat out exhausted and mentally unstable this past week.  My emotions have been like waves rising and crashing down on me.  I am left feeling out of control.  Nothing I hold on to stays and nothing that I search for is found.  I feel like I'm in over my head and close to drowning.

Drowning.  I can't say that I remember drowning as a kid because I have always known how to swim for as long as I can remember.  However, I remember the first time I went snowboarding and going down the mountain on my heels all the way because I was so unfamiliar with the way to stay balanced and my desired momentum.  I was getting used to it.  But after I got the hang of "carving" I started going faster and faster.  I remember a time when I was going so fast my heart was pounding because it felt like I was losing control more and more, my speed was at a pace that I would not be able to notice where the snow could be rock hard ice, and then I did.  I went over some ice and my board hit a rock solid patch which sent me falling face forward at a very alarming speed and my board unhitched from the rock and slammed into the back of my head.  I was traumatized by the accident.  Up until then I had been boarding for years without any sort of accident, but this one incident forever scarred my snowboarding experience.  I had lost control and because of it I paid the consequence of not so much pain, but untimeliness.  Losing control of the situation via speed was a barter I made and one that was met with a bash to the back of my head.  I could have died, or so I thought.  I could lose control in the future, I remember thinking that.  There could come another board to head incident, but maybe next time I wouldn't be able to simply rub my head and get back up.  

Maybe next time I could die.  

So I stopped boarding. 

It sounds silly, especially if you love snowboarding, because they all consider the risks within the learning process to be worth the development of the skill because it probably reaps a greater reward of enjoyment.  For me, that was not the case.  My fear of getting bashed in the head one last time was enough to leave the enjoyment of the wind rushing through my hair behind me.  I'll be in the cabin reading, thank you. 

Drowning is a scary thing because it is when we lose control of our perceived ability to "save ourselves" from death.   Snowboarding with incredible speed is similar to drowning except it is an intentional barter of losing some control for the sake of the adrenaline rush that you get in return.  Both scenarios take away a sense of control, albeit one is unintentional while the other is intentional.  The unintentional loss of control is like something that happens TO US not because of us.  The intentional loss of control is for us to gain something worth bartering for--a brief loss of control for a weighty degree of enjoyment. 

Which one is worse?  Losing control that feels unintentional or the kind that feels intentional?  It's harder to live with the former! Because no one wants to have bad things happen to them unintentionally, but yet we all live that way toward God.  When God says that the pressure is off and death is no longer a threat, that we are free to live and take risks and gain the enjoyment that comes with that--we instead live out of the more fearful place.  We live as if each day COULD be unintentional, neglecting that God has His will at work on earth as it is in Heaven, and His will is all intentional.  

We choose to think we are drowning rather than snowboarding. 

Haha.  Because giving God the intentionality for our loss of control feels heinous.  It don't feel right!  When we are "losing grips on our lives" or losing control in an area of our life or there is some unknown outcome at hand, we draw from conclusions in our innermost hearts that this COULD happen rather than that HIS WILL is happening intentionally.  

I hope to somehow gain deeper clarity in this area so that I can live more and more in the enjoyment of losing control rather than the fear of it. 

“For those who live according to the flesh think about the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, about the things of the Spirit.”

Romans 8:5

We are all dying in one sense, and those who have been raised to life in Christ are now living in Spirit until He comes to give us life eternal.  Which one are you living for....the flesh or the spirit, because one will bring fear and the other freedom. 

Jmegrey