I am not in control: a lesson in God's sovereignty
I am not in control. God mercilessly pounded that truth into me this week (well, not really mercilessly; please excuse the phrase). Here's how:
Krista and I prepared to watch some episodes of "24: Season Two" on DVD. We've been going through the season this semester and found some time Friday night to watch for a while. Well, the DVD decided it didn't want to play the episode we were at, but it would read the other three on that disc. We weren't about to just skip it, so we went elsewhere and tested the disc--in vain. Now, I hate renting stuff, but I felt the need to watch this episode tonight, so we went to the local video store and rented it. Happily we sat back down in front of the TV, only to realize that this time the player wouldn't even read the DVD at all... Frustrated, we drove back to the video store before they closed and I got my dinero back. There are three other video stores in town, all of which we proceeded to go to. Two didn't even carry the show, and the third was closed before midnight (a video store closing before midnight on a Friday night? Two words: poor business strategy.) Needless to say, it was not a happy night.
Earlier this week I broke a string on my guitar playing on a relatively new set of strings (3 or 4 weeks with little use) and playing with a light pick. I was hacked. So I simply re-strung the entire guitar. Glad that I had brand new strings on, I prepared for leading worship on Thursday and Sunday nights. Thursday night rolled around and guess what--I broke the same string, playing with guess what--a light pick. The other guy leading with me played by himself for a while, but then he broke a string. We ended early.
Today (Sunday--I haven't gone to bed yet) I was out playing guitar in the quad (grass lawn at school) with my light pick, and ZING-BANG I broke another string!!! I was so hacked I put my guitar away, took it back to my room, opened up my last brand new set of strings and just used the one I needed.
Tonight (Sunday) the rest of the band and I got there two hours early to get set up, do sound checks, and run through the music. Well, the folks who needed to be there to set up with us weren't there, and we had multiple problems with the instruments and sound equipment--we never could get the bass to play through the system, direct boxes got swiped and moved unbeknownst to other techies, we couldn't figure out how to make the keyboard transpose (which prevented us from playing our most looked-forward-to song), we were going to switch the keyboard at the last minute but by then we were out of time, we had to cut another song because we didn't have time to practice it (we'd never played it all plugged in together before). So we decided to do an acoustic set and scrap all out awesome rock-out stuff...[sniffle] The first song had feedback issues, so I was back-and-forth in the mic the entire song, every time it squeaked. In the second song the keyboard changed keys all of a sudden for no apparent reason, so I just stopped playing after about two measures of clashing chords with the guitar. Of the three songs left, two of them were piano based, so I had to play them alone because the key was whack. Everything was transcribed low, so there were a few notes I barely hit as my vocal chords scraped downward. I guess you could say we looked pretty stupid up there.
The point? Somewhere in the middle of today the Holy Spirit spoke to me: "Listen up you idiot! I'm trying to tell you something--you are not in control. I AM." Feeling like I wasn't in control was the source of all my frustration today and this week. God showed me His sovereignty the hard way. Maybe I'll remember it next time...
To quote my favorite songwriter:
Krista and I prepared to watch some episodes of "24: Season Two" on DVD. We've been going through the season this semester and found some time Friday night to watch for a while. Well, the DVD decided it didn't want to play the episode we were at, but it would read the other three on that disc. We weren't about to just skip it, so we went elsewhere and tested the disc--in vain. Now, I hate renting stuff, but I felt the need to watch this episode tonight, so we went to the local video store and rented it. Happily we sat back down in front of the TV, only to realize that this time the player wouldn't even read the DVD at all... Frustrated, we drove back to the video store before they closed and I got my dinero back. There are three other video stores in town, all of which we proceeded to go to. Two didn't even carry the show, and the third was closed before midnight (a video store closing before midnight on a Friday night? Two words: poor business strategy.) Needless to say, it was not a happy night.
Earlier this week I broke a string on my guitar playing on a relatively new set of strings (3 or 4 weeks with little use) and playing with a light pick. I was hacked. So I simply re-strung the entire guitar. Glad that I had brand new strings on, I prepared for leading worship on Thursday and Sunday nights. Thursday night rolled around and guess what--I broke the same string, playing with guess what--a light pick. The other guy leading with me played by himself for a while, but then he broke a string. We ended early.
Today (Sunday--I haven't gone to bed yet) I was out playing guitar in the quad (grass lawn at school) with my light pick, and ZING-BANG I broke another string!!! I was so hacked I put my guitar away, took it back to my room, opened up my last brand new set of strings and just used the one I needed.
Tonight (Sunday) the rest of the band and I got there two hours early to get set up, do sound checks, and run through the music. Well, the folks who needed to be there to set up with us weren't there, and we had multiple problems with the instruments and sound equipment--we never could get the bass to play through the system, direct boxes got swiped and moved unbeknownst to other techies, we couldn't figure out how to make the keyboard transpose (which prevented us from playing our most looked-forward-to song), we were going to switch the keyboard at the last minute but by then we were out of time, we had to cut another song because we didn't have time to practice it (we'd never played it all plugged in together before). So we decided to do an acoustic set and scrap all out awesome rock-out stuff...[sniffle] The first song had feedback issues, so I was back-and-forth in the mic the entire song, every time it squeaked. In the second song the keyboard changed keys all of a sudden for no apparent reason, so I just stopped playing after about two measures of clashing chords with the guitar. Of the three songs left, two of them were piano based, so I had to play them alone because the key was whack. Everything was transcribed low, so there were a few notes I barely hit as my vocal chords scraped downward. I guess you could say we looked pretty stupid up there.
The point? Somewhere in the middle of today the Holy Spirit spoke to me: "Listen up you idiot! I'm trying to tell you something--you are not in control. I AM." Feeling like I wasn't in control was the source of all my frustration today and this week. God showed me His sovereignty the hard way. Maybe I'll remember it next time...
To quote my favorite songwriter:
Whatcha been thinking about? Cuz I've been thinking about life and how nothing can escape the governing of God Still somehow that just doesn't comfort me tonight I still need to hear your voice.
~ Derek Webb, The Rich Song
posted by Seth at 1:40 AM
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