when life is out of control

by Kari Henkelmann Keyl

There’s “out of control” and there’s “seriously out of control”. The first is when a few nasty things happen that get your head spinning, but there’s enough steadiness in your life that you can almost handle the craziness. You share your frustrations with a friend or two. They share their out-of-balance stories. You realize you’re ok. You might even be grateful to be doing as well or better than they are.

But then there are times when life has become practically unrecognizable. So many of your count-on-ables have crashed… that you can hardly breathe. Vulnerable, volatile, on the edge. How do you handle it? Lots of tempting, unhelpful ways to choose from…

Some pretend everything’s fine, and refuse to open up to others. Some dump it all out ad nauseum until their friends are tempted to disown them. Some turn a resentful eye to the world around them and blame everyone else for their out-of-controlness.

These temptations are nothing new, of course. Jesus’ followers had to deal with being out of control, too. And we get to learn from their unhealthy choices. Aren’t we lucky?

Picture this: Jesus’ disciples are sorting through some tough realities. They’d previously seen so many incredible healings happen, both by Jesus’ hands and their own. They knew what they were doing and they did it well. In control.

But then they tried to heal someone with a nasty demon, and it didn’t work. What’s going on? Are we losing it? Their teacher Jesus had to come in and take care of it. That was bad enough, to feel like you’re slipping, like the bad things are controlling you instead of you controlling them. But it got even worse, when Jesus got all gloom-and-doom, lecturing them about how it was his job to give up his power and die. Completely out of control.

In the middle of this, the disciples encounter someone who’s successfully healing people, using Jesus’ name to do it, but he’s not someone of their in-group. So here’s some uncertified healer doing something the disciples themselves couldn’t do yesterday! Geez, Jesus, what’s the deal? What can we count on anymore? Is it all falling apart?

See how John tattles on the do-gooder and how Jesus responds:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%209:38-41&version=CEV

There’s lots here to talk about… how the disciples resort to “us and them” thinking and how Jesus won’t let them sink into that… how we also are tempted to take things out on others when we’re frustrated… how God might be acting through all this to take us through our struggles to new places of insight… how Jesus knows what it’s like to voluntarily become out of control… and that he does it for us.

And how is it that we, as a community of Jesus that is both local and virtual, support one another in our out-of-control struggles?  Lots of good stuff to munch on...

Do come to this Thursday’s Bread for your Journey (7pm, Crowne Plaza, Nashua, exit 8) for more of these tasty morsels, if you happen to be reasonably local. Otherwise, come back to the blog on the weekend to continue the conversation. Feel free to comment here: Any thoughts you have, any links you’d like to share, are most welcome.

Peace in the storm,
Kari