Control

We arrive at the airport fatigued, utterly exhausted from 17 hours of flying and arrive in a world that looks nothing like ours, almost the antithesis of our world. We attempt to maintain control... in everything. From tight schedules to handpicked schools to nicely manicured lawns, we control, or attempt to control everything. Here it seems as everything is out of control... or almost out of control. In my mind it is as if one small twist or turn can send everything into a tailspin. Water covering the road in rainy season, there is no way to travel to Awash. Paperwork lost, come back next week. And on and on. But this is how they live, organized chaos. But to them it isn't chaotic at all; they adapt. Trucks collide, everyone creates a road on the dirt. Children on the side of the road without a bottle, throw your water bottle out the window to them. No toilet, pee on the side of the road. No toilet paper, use your left hand. Ok, maybe a little over the top. Control: it is a fascinating attraction, or should I say mirage. I struggle when I don't have control at work, at home, in life. But I know and you know that we have very little that we control. The economy slows, natural disaster occur, a father dies and what happens? We flounder and flail feeling as though everything is falling apart when, in reality it is the way of the world. Trying to pad ourselves from this reality makes the fall so much greater when loss of control occurs. So how do I deal with this struggle? In my logical mind I can create a framework. We are broken people who live in a broken world. As a follower of Christ I know this from the truth of sin as I see it in my heart and as I see it everyday in the world. Science confirms this with concepts like entropy and erosion. We are in the process of becoming less and less complex. Or to say it another way, we are deteriorating. I am called to redeem my little part of the world. It is was Christ meant when he said "You are the salt of the earth." We help to keep the world from deteriorating any faster than it already is. So I make these logical assertions but realize that coming face to face with sin and brokenness is simply well... overwhelming. It is heavy. It is again out of my control. The only one who can make sense of the madness is a God who sees all, knows all, and is in all. And I trust that He will redeem this out of control world, someday... someday.