All right, so this is the week I got reappointed here for another year, and I’m grateful and excited about that. But I was thinking about how much of life we spend trying to control things that we can’t actually control. We make all these plans, we grip them real tight, and then life does what life does and we’re shocked.
God keeps saying—in the yearly reports, in my prayers, in the reassurance we keep coming back to—just trust. Let go. Stop trying to run the show.
Now, that sounds simple. It sounds peaceful. But it’s not. Because trust means releasing control. It means saying “I can’t guarantee how this goes, but I’m going to proceed anyway.” That takes guts.
You know what helps? Community. Knowing you’re not alone in your uncertainty. That your church, your family, your friends are willing to stand with you even when things don’t go according to plan.
We had a prayer time asking God to help us actually trust instead of just saying we trust with our words while our knuckles stay white gripping the wheel. We asked God to help us be humble and repentant enough to actually let God lead us instead of us following ourselves.
Because here’s the thing—when we stop trying to control everything, we get to notice things. We get to see where God’s already working. We get to join in instead of fight. We get to help people, celebrate with people, be present to people instead of being so busy managing our own agenda.
That’s not weakness. That’s wisdom. That’s the kind of trust that actually changes us.
A reflection by Rev. MaryGean Cope