Choosing Wisdom Over Control

On the wall at my gym this morning I saw a plaque on the wall that read, “Innovation—If you want to predict the future, create it.” I have always struggled with simplistic positive-thinking quips. They sound really good on the surface but ignore how much of life we simply can’t control. That’s why I’ll take the Serenity Prayer any day over simple positive thinking, self-help techniques. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” This covers it all. As soon as we think that everything is in our control, we are in big trouble. But that doesn’t mean we’re off the hook. We don’t get to “let go and let God.” Our real work, once we move past magical thinking and unrealistic responsibility-taking, starts when we get wise about what we can control and what we can’t control.

What makes this discernment especially hard, though, is that we live in a consumer culture. Everywhere we turn we are being sold something: food, diet advice, pharmaceuticals, clothes, style tips, homes, décor, parenting advice, and even spirituality. The real message underneath all the ads, though, is this, “If you get or do the right stuff, you can be in control.” Spoiler alert, this is nonsense. Terrible, unfair, unjust, and painful things happen no matter how much you go to the gym, how great your skin looks, how much clean eating you do, how organized you are, how many self-help books you read, or how much you pray. I know this seems like terrible news, but it’s actually liberating good news! It means you can stop wasting all of your precious energy on self-defeating perfectionism and start investing your energy in practices that make you humble, resilient, kind, and wise.

That’s what real serenity is. Real serenity comes when we cultivate loving relationships, surrender to the Grace of God whose love we can’t earn, and participate in practices that soften our hearts and strengthen our spirits. Serenity comes when we attend to what is merciful and just and find ways to use our gifts and talents to add to the mercy and justice already at work in the world. Serenity comes when we stop obsessing about happiness and take steps toward wholeness. We can and do create the future. We create the future when we love our people when they’re hard to love. We create the future when we smile and talk to someone we don’t know at in our faith communities, instead of circling up with familiar people. We create the future when we take an hour for ourselves and fill it with exercise, meditation, worship, reading, listening to a beautiful piece of music, or gazing out at a beautiful view. We create the future when we talk with a counselor to work through pain and loss that has a life-draining hold on us. We create the future when we make art, pursue research, and explore our curiosity. We create the future when we speak truth to power.

The bad news is that we will never be in control. The great news is that control is overrated; wisdom is not. Get wise about what keeps you from loving and accepting love. Get wise about what keeps you from forgiving and being forgiven. Get wise about what gives you deep joy. Get wise about what you can change and what you can’t or shouldn’t change. Get wise about what you are gifted at doing, and how you can use those gifts to make a more merciful and just world. Most of all, get wise about the ways in which self-reliance can get in the way of Grace. True wisdom happens when we admit how much we don’t know and how great is our need of one another. So, don’t worry about being in control. Work on being whole. Don’t worry about predicting the future. Work on showing up in your present. It won’t be easy. It won’t be painless, but the wisdom, community, and Grace you will find there will be the greatest gift you will ever receive.