pluto

Anyone who has held the bitter aftertaste of anxiety in his mouth knows better to leave well enough alone, and yet somehow, we all know what he tastes like. We know we ought not to bat an eye at the discouragement, but we do. We know not to dwell on that thought for more than a second, but we do.  We dwell on it for minutes, hours, days, months...

Surely, we know what anxiety looks like--the looming interview, the project deadline, the exam, dwindling numbers in a bank account, the seconds leading up to stepping out from behind the curtain, the (you) fill-in-the-blank. We know what he feels like-- the disease that continually riddles our bodies, robs us of breath and sleep, shakes us awake in cold sweat, makes us so exhausted that we wonder silently what it'd be like to sleep and never wake.

We medicate ourselves by running or numbing. As if penciling in the lunch appointment this week or the wedding next year on the empty spaces of our calendars will keep anxiety at bay. As if writing out our lives, day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month, year-by-year, with the meals we eat, the bills we pay, the clothes we buy, the spouse we will find, the kids we will have, will keep him away. If we plan, maybe we can plan him away.

But isn't anxiety often what drives us to do these things in the first place? To plan everything out only to believe for a few seconds that we're on top of it all?

Control is oft an illusion.

An ink mark on a page is, after all, just that, a mark. You can underline, circle, and highlight all you like, but what happens in the course of your life is seldom determined by the ink in your planner.

What if we stopped trying to figure out our futures and just let Him be in control? What if we stopped trying so hard to calculate the costs to secure peace? What if we just stepped back and decided we were going to live in the season and soak in the promise that He provides because He cares?