Who's the Boss? (Part 3)
I needed to get ahold of my doctor the other day. I called the office three days in a row with an empty promise that they'd call me back. The last time I called, the administrator said, "is this an emergency?" I didn't know how to explain that everything in my life feels like an emergency these days. "I'm not dying...but my daughter..." I gave up. It was a lost cause. The admin held the keys to the doctor's office and she was not going to let me in.
In John's gospel, several times Jesus makes it clear that he is going to act on his own time, only in accordance with the will of the Father, and not by the manipulation of people or by happenstance (John 2:4, John 4:48, John 7:6, John 11:6). I do not like this. Is Jesus like my doctor's office? Does he hear my vulnerable prayers for more children and coldly tell me that he'll get back to me in his own time?
The odd thing is that, in all those places in John when Jesus says it's not time yet, Jesus then goes and does whatever the person or people were asking him to do, but in a way they could never have foreseen (turns water into wine, heals a child from twenty-five miles away, raises someone from the dead). Jesus can't be manipulated or controlled. He has the ultimate authority. But, Jesus is also love. So while he acts out of his own accord, he also is quick to respond to us, because he loves us. Like a loving parent, he doesn't respond to us because he is tricked by our manipulation. He responds, because he wants to respond.
I'm glad I can't manipulate or control Jesus. For one, I am not very good at persuasion. Second, it means that I don't have to pray in a specific formula, or make sure I use all the right words or pray enough times for Jesus to get the message. I don't have to convince him that I should take priority. Rather, I can tell him what I want and trust that when he does respond, it will be because he wants to respond. I can also trust that he will respond in a way far better than I could ever have anticipated, because he loves me.
I'm still working out my control issues with Jesus. Death makes you realize how very little control you have, and makes you try to grasp for it even more. After a loss so big, it's hard to believe Jesus is like a loving parent and not like a cold doctor's office administrator. But even so, there is a freedom I am learning when I let go of trying to control what is incontrollable, and instead just tell Jesus, "this hurts."
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