I am periodically reminded of the fact that we live our lives in such a way – certainly in the modern West – as though everything is ultimately within our control. That appearance of control means that we quickly stop trusting in God. Why do I need to pray, when I simply have the buttons to press and the means at my disposal to resolve all my own problems? It’s not that I don’t trust God, so much as I don’t always feel I really need to.

Of course, that appearance of control only works when we do actually have the appearance of control. The wheels quickly come off when the Lord makes apparent – sometimes in big ways, sometimes in smaller ones – that we aren’t really in control at all. In fact, there are a great many issues where we don’t have the means at our disposal to do anything and there simply are no buttons to press.

Our car, for example, has been in the garage for the last three months. The cause of the issue – a matter entirely outside of my control – was a tree falling on the car. Even the insurance company referred to it as, ‘an act of God’. The irony was not lost on me as it happened on the way to our church prayer meeting! But out of nowhere, a tree dropped on the car and the sum total of that has been that we have been without it for three months.

I almost came to look forward to the weekly phone call I would get from the garage with the latest update. The words were almost exactly the same every time: ‘the part we are waiting on is on back order with now estimated time of arrival. I’ll put you down for another call next week.’ The work itself was all done within the week of it going in. Except for this one part that we could do nothing to get, the garage could do nothing to get and no matter how hard they tried, nothing seemed to come. A prime example of a matter outside of our hands over which we had no control.

I am usually a great worrier by nature. But over this whole issue I have – apart from the initial shock and immediate need to call appropriate people (and not quite knowing who) – I have been remarkably sanguine about the whole thing. Ultimately, it is in the Lord’s hands. He has, throughout, by hook or by crook, provided us with a vehicle so we can get around and do what we need to do. It may not be our vehicle, or as good a vehicle, but ultimately an adequate vehicle that has been, well, perfectly adequate. We could huff and puff, we could have sleepless nights, we could worry ourselves to death, but in the end there is nothing we can do about it and the Lord has made it such that we are ultimately fine. But we can trust him to see us right, even when things are out of our hands.

Another case in point. We had a new roof put on our house a couple of years ago. We woke up last week to find water flooding in through a light fixture in one of our bedrooms. One could panic, but I thought I’d ring our roofer and get it sorted ASAP. Only, poor bloke, our roofer was in hospital and in no position to do anything. Now what do we do? But, in the end, it got sorted. At least, I think it is sorted. I can’t fix that problem, even our roofer was in no position to fix it himself, but we eventually got it sorted. But the semblance of control quickly disappears when issues – which inevitably happen – arise.

I am nothing if not a slow learner. I am convinced the Lord sometimes brings these things to us to remind us that we are not in control and, rather than descending into a mess of worry, he wants to encourage us to turn to him. He is in control. We are not. Even when things don’t work out as we would have them, we can entrust ourselves to the goodness of our God who is more concerned about our welfare than even we are. The semblance of control is not always good for us, sometimes we need things to go a bit wrong for us to remember that we are not in control, but we have a God who is who cares ultimately for our good in whatever he brings to pass.