I like planning ahead. As much as possible I like to know what I’m doing well in advance so that I can be fully prepared when the doing needs to be done. Take Sunday’s worship services, for example. I try to have them prepared well ahead of their actual delivery date. This gives me a great deal of creative freedom and helps ensure that they are fresh and new and worthy of God’s attention. Right now, for example, I know roughly what I’ll be preaching on through to the end of June. Well, OK, two of those Sundays are out of my hands, but generally, I have the Message topics picked out and I’m starting to figure out what music fits in with those ideas.
Of course, there are times when I’m not in total control. This Anniversary weekend the Pulpit is in the hands of our guest speaker, the Reverend Doctor Harvey self. Next weekend I’m on study leave, so that Sunday worship will be led by our own Reverend Lillian Wilton. This is a bit of a challenge for me, because I have to leave things in the hands of other highly capable people. I know this in my head. I feel it in my heart. I have no problem entrusting the congregation to trusted friends. Still, it’s hard, not because I have to be in control, but because I’m used to being in control. I realize it’s a subtle distinction, but it’s where the heart of my discomfort lies.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t have to be in control of everything. While I made the arrangements for our 50th Anniversary guest speaker, the rest of the plans for the 50th have been in the hands of our 50th Anniversary Committee. Other than offering words of praise and encouragement and asking how things are going once in a while, I’ve happily let the committee do their work because they are doing a great job, having fun doing it, and I know I don’t need to be running or even assisting every single operation of the church. In other words, I am an Un-control Freak. I like to be informed of what’s going on, I like to be in control of the things that are my strict responsibility, but I don’t have to control every little or big thing.
Being a leader of sorts, I feel sorry for God, the ultimate leader. I realize that God could do everything I and all my colleagues do, in addition to doing all the things that church committees and sub-committees do, in addition to doing everything that all we humans do, but He doesn’t. Instead, God gives us a great deal of control for things big and small. Sometimes things go very well and I’m sure please God. Sometimes they don’t and I’m certain they cause God a great deal of pain and disappointment. Still, God trusts all of us to do what is right, to do what is honourable, to do what is loving and kind.
God is nothing if not the greatest Un-control Freak. That’s what allows us to be fully human, even if it means making quite a few mistakes. Our saving grace is that God is also the Ultimate Forgiver, a task that is His and His alone and for which, thankfully, He has total and absolute control.
