Religion makes us think we’re in control; we are not!

Religion can be described as doing the same things over and over. We often use it in the context of spiritual matters, like praying every day or going to church religiously. Yet we can do other things religiously as well. We might eat dinner at the same time every day, or always go shopping on a Thursday evening, or always go for a run on Tuesday mornings. Religion can make us feel like we are in control of our world because it builds routine and regularity into what would otherwise be a chaotic existence.

I admit that I like routine. I like to be organised. I use my calendar and my to-do list extensively and feel a sense of accomplishment when I achieve all the things I planned to achieve in a day. I feel calm knowing that I have a plan for the day or the coming week and am in control of what is going to happen.

Except I am not in control at all. And neither are you. Yes, sometimes a day will go the way that I planned it to go, sure. But so often it does not. I might get an unexpected phone call or email. One of my family members might get sick. There could be an accident on the way to work that delays me or a government law that changes what I intended to do. I plan, but my plans don’t happen the way I intend. There are too many factors outside my control.

Consider where you were five or ten years ago. Did you expect your life would look the way it does today? Often, even in the big structural things like the work we do, the place we live, and our family structure, things turn out differently to how we expect. And that’s before we look at the smaller details!

I asked a group a while ago if they were currently working in the same industry that they intended to work in when they completed high school. None of them were. None. It is very common to change career, to have doors closed and others open over time. If we stop and think about things, we are far less in control of our lives than our calendars and to-do lists might suggest.

There is an old saying that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. God knows what will happen. God is in control of everything and no unexpected circumstance can change what he wants to do. That is a massive comfort for me. Even though I might like to know what will happen next week or next year, there will be things I cannot forsee and do not expect. Yet that’s fine. That doesn’t fill me with anxiety, because Someone far wiser and more powerful than me, who works all things for my good, is in control of all of it.

We need to be humble when considering the future, and remember that everything that we plan is provisional. As previous generations often added to the end of plans, we should consider all our future ambitions as “God willing”. Trust in the One who is truly in control, not in your own hard work and foresight and religion.