Finding Faith ... in learning to go to God from our lessons

By Pastor Devlyn Brooks

Just when you try your hardest to control the things in your life, God has many ways he throws at you to remind you that you really aren’t in control of anything.

This past weekend, Shelley and I traveled to Omaha as part of a long-awaited getaway. She is a huge college basketball fan, and for Christmas I had purchased her tickets to see her favorite team, Marquette, play against Creighton at CHI Health Arena. It was one of her bucket list college basketball arenas that she’s wanted to see.

Two times in one weekend, our plans were upended by two separate blizzards. The first blizzard happened last Friday, altering our travel plans on the way down. And the second blizzard -- the recent two-day doozy -- turned the usual six-hour trip from Omaha into a 30-hour trip with a stay overnight in Watertown, S.D.

The timing of both blizzards contributed a lot of stress during what was supposed to be an awesome trip, months in the making. And is there anything more frustrating than when you make plans, and then they are thwarted by something that is completely out of your control? … It can be maddening!

We felt that frustration this weekend! … Especially when we were trapped in a hotel room for a day when we were just about two hours from home!

Both of us had to call into work for Tuesday and tell them we weren’t going to be in. We had to extend our doggie daycare for another day. And the kids at home were stuck without us for an entire day longer than we had planned. It was all out of our control! And it was all so frustrating!

But, you know what? … As I write this just hours after getting home, we are now safe. The long journey back is over. We have all of our stuff hauled in from the truck. The driveway and sidewalks got snowblowed. We both spent time on our computers getting caught up at work. The two puppies are back home, happy to be snuggled into their beds. And the girls did just fine on their own for one more night.

And all of the angst that we felt all weekend long because of the setbacks due to the blizzards are all behind us. In hindsight, of course, it’s easy to see how much wasted energy they took from us.

And now we just have the memories of an awesome weekend in Omaha, where we saw a great college basketball game in a raucous arena, ate some really good meals in some wonderful restaurants, and got to hang out in Omaha’s really cool historic downtown district.

The stress because of the blizzards really produced no productive benefit, but at the moment it sure is hard to turn that feeling off, isn’t it? We don’t like when our plans get disrupted because we like to believe that we are in far more control of this life than we really are. And instead of just turning over the frustrations to God, and asking him to help us see a way through, we try even harder to control our own circumstances.

There were many times during the travel difficulties that I would ask for God’s help, and then just seconds later the worry and the fretting would start all over again. It’s like my heart knew to just hand things over to God, while my brain struggled for control of the situation.

I’m sure that you have your own similar stories. We’ve all been there, and we will continue to find ourselves in similar predicaments, because after all we are human. We have a hard time letting go of old habits!

But let’s also try to continue learning from our lessons. I want to believe that this weekend has taught me again the importance of prayer and asking God to intercede in my daily affairs. After all, that is truly the relationship he wants with us! And it is not silly in the least to ask him to help fix the circumstances we are in.

This weekend’s experience reminded me that it’s important to go to God with your frustrations and your difficulties! I hope that you can remember the same lesson the next time you feel the frustration of a loss of control setting in!

Blessings!