I Like Order

I like order. When everything is very orderly, I feel in control. I don’t always like structure– rules and prescriptive ways of doing things–but even when I prefer to fly by the seat of my pants, my flying, and my pants for that matter, are very orderly. 

God has indulged me in this little proclivity: I have four kids, two girls and two boys. All the children are two years apart, the first two in September, the next two in March. We celebrate birthdays two times per year, six months apart. My children' s names all consist of four letters, one syllable. We (almost–coming soon!) have eight grandchildren, four boys and four girls. Each of my adult children has one boy and one girl. 

If you come to my house and remove your shoes and set them so the right is on the left and the left is on the right, this drives me crazy and I will switch them for you, even in front of you, so that they are properly aligned. I also cannot tolerate anything inside-out, especially if it is hanging on a hook where I can see it, or a coat with the sleeves partially pulled inside. I have a compulsion to make things right and orderly–like my dishes, my silverware, and my towels which are all the same color–dark gray (just the towels, not the dishes which are all green and identical and stacked neatly in the cupboard). I make my bed every single day not because I have to but because I want to. It creates order in my house. Obviously, this was all much harder to achieve when I had four sticky children running around, but now that I have the opportunity, I like keeping things perfect.

I like order so much that I rely on it to feel secure. When things fly out of order, which they often do, I feel panicky because they might never become orderly again. 

But here’s the question I need to consider: Am I relying more on my ability to keep things perfectly ordered or on the God who sovereignly allows disorder so that we will run to him? 

Although God does, indeed, like order–look at the creation account or the animals two-by-two, or the instructions for the tabernacle, or the Levitical laws– but because he allowed us free will, disorder now reigns in our world. Because of this disorder, I try to control my little world so I don’t have to worry. But should I really put my trust in my perception of what feels safe? 

I’ve heard people say, “The safest place you can be is in the center of God’s will,” but I am wondering if maybe that’s not really true. Because when I surrender to God’s will, I must give up my own will; giving up my own will feels like losing control. Losing control means that I won’t be able to keep everything in perfect order. Is that where God wants me to be–at the end of myself but at the beginning of him? If we could see the future and were able to control all the variables so we felt at ease with what was ahead, we wouldn’t feel our need for a Savior. But we need a Savior because we have no ability to see around the corner. If what comes next makes my well-controlled house of cards fall to pieces, what will I put my trust in then?

So, even though God is sweet to me by allowing me a great sense of order in my life, if I put my security only in those things–in the things that feel clean and clear and ordered, I lose the opportunity to sit at his feet, to rely on him and not my well-ordered life. When I rely on my own tenacity to keep things well-aligned, I am not truly surrendering my will or my wants. If I only have peace when things are controlled, I’m not really trusting in the One who will sustain me when everything flies out of place (or when the grandchildren all visit at once).

Here’s where I have landed in this meandering thought experiment: If I only feel happy when my physical world is perfect, I am forgetting that Christ did, indeed, give me a little peek around the corner; this peek should give me peace. Christ lived, died, and was RESURRECTED so that I could see that all the chaos of this world will eventually be made beautiful and right. So I don’t need to panic. I need to look farther ahead and see what awaits me when God resurrects and restores Heaven and Earth. Confidence in that future promise is what should give me peace.

So in the meantime, when things get messy, I will be arranging my silverware into neat little piles and thinking thoughts of Heaven.

No Worry Required

In the past, I have written about my guilty conscience and the ways I try to quiet it. Some things for which I used to feel guilty have resolved themselves because they involved parenting duties I have now relegated to my adult children themselves, ie: cutting their own fingernails and brushing their teeth. When they were small, I didn’t do these things for them and barely did them for myself because I was simply trying to survive and those things seemed superfluous. Now that I sleep and have large chunks of time at my disposal, most of the things I once felt guilty about no longer plague me. In fact, I don’t struggle as much with guilt now as I used to, maybe because I realized many of the things I struggled with were actually false guilt. What I struggle now with is worry. 

I worry about my kids. I worry about my grandkids; I tell myself to stop because it is their parents' job to worry about them and I already did– and am doing–that for my kids. If I keep worry tabs open for each grandchild–we are up to eight now–I would freeze, and my mind would become the spinning ball of death–the same ball that appears on my Mac when I give it too much to do. I worry about my husband, and I worry about both of us when we fly in his airplane. I worry about my dog which I left with friends in Wyoming because I didn’t want to fly him home and because he is epileptic and I worry about his seizures. As a writer and a non-rusher and a bit of a dawdler, I worry about productivity. So when I get into a good routine of writing or living or eating, I worry about stopping it because maybe I will never get into a good routine again. I worry about writing because it doesn’t come as easily and cleanly as it used to, and I have to work harder to make myself do it even though I love it. I worry that I might be stupid because even though I understand words and feelings, numbers and money confuse me. I worry about my hermit-like tendencies and wonder if maybe I should try to be around people more even though I really like staying home by myself. I worry about exercising, and then when I exercise too much I worry that I am not recovering well and that maybe I have permanently injured myself. I worry about having too much stuff. I am OCD with this and need to know where everything is so I can feel in control. If I have too much, I can’t keep track of it all and it is stressful for me. When we moved recently, I got rid of nearly half of my possessions and keepsakes and it felt very clean and controlled. Now I worry about buying things because that clean feeling might go away. I worry about everything happening in the world today and that things are spinning wildly out of control and nothing will ever be beautiful again.

But mostly, I worry about worrying because I know that it accomplishes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. So why do I do it, and why do I keep letting myself get into the mental space where everything feels threatening and life seems oppressive and ugly? I do it because I don’t really truly believe that God is sovereign and good. If you asked me this, I would say that I do believe he is those things, but I am realizing now that I don't. But I want to.

If I truly, with all my worrying heart, believed that God was holding onto everything and that nothing happened that wasn’t sifted through his holy hands, I could relax. I mean really relax. And I could enjoy the life he has assigned me in the time and place he has put me. If I truly trusted that he is good and that he is doing good for me, I could live the simple life of a child–God’s child. I wouldn’t worry because my Heavenly Father is in control. He is all-powerful. He is omniscient. And nothing ever surprises him. He is allowing history to unfold in the exact manner that he planned, and he is not shocked by the brokenness of the people he has made. If I really believed that I was praying to my Father–to my FATHER–in Heaven when I pray the Lord’s prayer or any prayer, I could shed my propensity to worry about everything as fast as my granddaughter sheds her clothes at the mention of a bath. 

Because really, what is worry? It accomplishes nothing except fear. It makes me distrustful and sometimes bitter because if nothing bad ever happened, I would never have to do it. The only time I find myself at ease and not worrying is when everything is going my way and no one is sick and no one is sad and all of my possessions are tidy and in order. 

But this is no way to live, because then I am always worrying that the perfectness is just about to end, and then I will be back to worrying again. I try to mitigate all of this by telling my kids to drive carefully and to stay healthy. I put up gates in my new house so no one will fall down the stairs and break themselves although I am still worried that they will stand on the bench that sits by the stairs and catapult themselves overboard and land lifeless in the basement. These thoughts create panic in my brain, not peace. So how do I stop? How do I get to a place of peace?

I get to peace by giving it all up–all the worry. I get to peace by trusting that God has my best life planned, even if it’s not the way I may think best, it will be the very best to make me more like him. I get to peace by praying and telling him that I am worrying again, and that I know that I am not supposed to worry about anything. I get to peace by reviewing his faithfulness in my life in the past. I get to peace by reading the Bible and seeing things that God already did and things he has already worked out behind the scenes when no one even knew he was doing it. I get to peace by truly believing that God has already won the battle over Satan. That he sent Jesus to live perfectly in my place so I have nothing to prove. That everything sad will one day become untrue. 

I get to peace by realizing that when I focus on my little ever-changing life, I am uncomfortable and insecure. And by realizing that when I focus on God and his unchanging nature, I can be still and know that he is God. When I look at his sovereignty rather than my fickleness, I see that worry is silly because we have no control over anything. But God does. 

And he is a master at making everything beautiful in its time.

God has a beautiful worry-free life planned for me. I just need to believe it and give up my perceived control. I need to remind myself daily of his goodness. I need to stop worrying, look for the peace he has promised, and learn to trust him more.

Because he really is sovereign and good.

 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7 (NLT)