I am a Chaser

...a chaser of some mirage.  The mirage swirls around this idea that I can control, that I can "make" my own destiny. A delusion really.  And I am surrounded by like-minded company.  Our society promotes the same idea, doesn't it? 

             From an early age, we absorb our culture's arrogant conviction that we manufacture

everything, reducing the world to mere "raw material" that lacks all value until

we impose our designs and labor on it. ~ Parker Palmer Let Your Life Speak

But our lives our dependent on so much more than we can even fathom. 

I can't tell my heart to pump.

I can't manufacture regeneration in my cells.

I can't control the economy.

I can't even control my kids.  

I can't keep an appliance from quitting.

I can't prevent a tire from going flat.

I can't dictate the weather. 

I often can't even predict what will happen. 

I am subject to a Higher Power, and I am so glad I am. 

Really, despite my arrogance, what do I know about what I really need or how to orchestrate the melodies of the perfect composition? 

If the music of my soul depended on me, the tune would come out in squeaks and flat tones.  I need a musician far more knowledgeable and skilled than I. I need someone to play the notes. To hit those soaring melodies and moving harmonies. Only then will the music point back where it needs to--not to the instrument but to the musician. 

A. W. Tozer wrestles with this dichotomy on a soul level.  Our spirits are truly free when we understand that we possess nothing--nor should we.  All that should reign in our hearts is the One and Only.  All other kings are idols. 

The blessed ones who possess the Kingdom are they who have repudiated every

external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing.

(A. W. Tozer The Pursuit of God)

Matthew 16:24 "Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.'"

To give up all for Christ's sake is to lose nothing at last, but to preserve

everything unto life eternal. (The Pursuit of God)

So I am free to let go of what I couldn't hold onto in the first place. I am free to say, "your will be done" and truly believe that He will accomplish what is needed... and it will be good. 

I am free to relinquish that which he granted me for my life's duration (my family, my home, my talents, my health, my ambition, my dreams)  and say, "You compose the song." 

Or as I can more readily relate: "You write the story."  And I will walk the plot line; I won't fight, I won't turn another way... and I won't demand the other characters of the story follow the story I'd like to write for them.  They are all characters in their own stories as well.  And some day--when the veil has lifted--we'll see the awesome anthology You wrote.