Eve saw the fruit was pleasing to look at and she ate it.. St John Paul II said ‘that the essence of the original sin is to grasp what we want rather than receive it as a gift.’ I was listening to a talk by a priest and he mentioned that in Lent we can give up our need to control.. Which made me think that something about the effects of sin is our need to control, control others, ourselves our environment.
Maybe this Lent we can ask God to give us the grace to let go and not need to control everything. Ask yourself a question? Do I feel the need to control others..? For most of you, if not all of us including myself we lead busy busy lives.. and we are afraid of he chaos that might happen if we don’t be on top of everything.. Yes we need to pay our bills, clean our house, visit the sick, go to work.. and this is proper and being responsible even prudent..
The problem is it more about our need for control than being prudent.?
One of the reason we don’t see God working more in our lives by His Divine surprises is that we think we know how everything ought to run, to think?We don’t so much listen to others as their to convince others that we are right. We have created in our mind a little idol of how the world ought to act and we can’t see how the world can work outside of our worldview.
Made me think that the essence of sin might be a need often hidden to control. Like Eve if we don’t grasp for what we need we will be left out. I am going to take what I need, otherwise I will be left out. Sometimes we can try to control others by being a victim, guilt, our charity, by our reasoning. C. S Lewis said that technology is akin to magic. The use of magic gave the person the illusion of controlling the world. And according to C S lewis technology our smart dumb phones, have the same motive as people who turned to magic 1000 years ago and even today. Our cell phone give us the illusion that we can know anything anytime at the touch of a button. So we feel more and more in control.
It is a false sense of control but we fall under it spell. We think that if we don’t keep on top of everything the world will crumble around us.. As if we not God was holding the world together.
What does it look like when we give up our need or at least some of our need to control. It doesn’t mean that we don’t act in a responsible way? it just means that 99 percent of what happens around us is outside of our control. But when we discover this God can now break through the walls we have created and show us by a delightful discovery that God wants to bless us. And we learn that we will grow in virtue, be surprised by miracles and discover with a childlike wonder that God knows what he is doing. We will become less tense, unsure and let God be God.
So maybe this Lent you can try to root out what maybe the root effect of sin which is a desire to control ourselves, others and the world itself, and maybe even a desire to control God. We say let God take the steering wheel of your life. And you will discover that God knows how to take you to Heaven better than you do. When we take the steering wheel away from God we go straight to the highway to hell.
God is full of surprise. So I offer this suggestion this Lent. Ask God for the grace to let go at least a little bit of your need to control.
I love this idea of “giving up” control for Lent!! This is an issue that I struggle with often, and I find that when I do finally “let go,” God does some amazing and surprising things!