In these last last couple weeks, I’ve had a crash course in How to Lose Control 101. So far, there has only been one lesson, one trick, one easy step! to feeling helplessly lost and inadequate, and I have been so totally immensely successful:
Try to stay in control.
Try to keep everything together. Try as hard as you can. The opposite is bound to happen. I’ve learned that if I would like things to break, then I must first invest quite heavily in glue. Because it’s when I’m trying to prevent a million, million eventualities that there is never a time when those eventualities are more likely to occur. Murphy’s Law, amiright? Or was it that I was never in control all along?
Hmm…
Anyway. I’ll be getting back to the details of my crash course a bit later.
For right now, I’m getting towards the end of Ecclesiastes. These explorations have been enormously helpful to me. I feel like God has really taught me things in unorthodox ways, which, really, when I think about it for a second, is actually pretty typical of God. He teaches us the lessons we most need to learn precisely when we 1) are not expecting to learn them and 2) when we absolutely would rather learn anything—really, anything!—else. At all!
This week was Ecclesiastes 10, which (as per usual) I had no idea how to interpret. No idea at all. There’s no chapter heading, either (Ecc. 9:11 is headed by “Wisdom Better Than Folly”). I read chapter 10 a number of times, waiting around for what it was supposed to mean, how it was supposed to become relevant to my experiences.
I didn’t get it until last night. But, before I actually get into the verses, some contextualization is required, and this is where I go back to How to Lose Control 101.
A few things about me as a person:
- perfectionist
- aspiring academic — 3.98 GPA with 4.00 major course GPA
- gym enthusiast
At the beginning of the week, I was really convicted of 3 things. I’ve had 3 sticky notes on my computer screen all week, and they have been incredibly annoying reminders as I’ve been trying to do work with them in the way. They read:
- Where is your identity?
- Why are you afraid to be sincere + speak the truth?
- Why do you like to worry?
Good questions for me. At the beginning of the week, I pretty much asked to be challenged. If I was being honest with myself, I would have had to admit that the answers to these questions I knew already—but abstractly. I had not yet put them concretely into my life. To be honest, I didn’t really want to either. What I didn’t expect, though, was that God was going to put me to the test, to actually make me take those questions seriously. It’s so conveniently easy to forget that God is a God who holds us accountable, and I had asked some very dangerous questions indeed.
The things that happened to me this semester/week:
- I got a bad grade on a lab. (Which to me was inexplicable: “I never do bad on labs! I never do bad on anything!!”)
- I had an assortment of very long essays thrust upon me. (Granted, I’m a writing major, but still. It’s not easy for me to do research for and crank out 20+ pages of quality stuff in a couple weeks, not to mention work for other classes.)
- I totally missed submitting a homework assignment. (Just totally missed it on the syllabus. Completely. 0 points. No late submissions. Done.)
Maybe this doesn’t sound that bad to you. But, to me, this was completely devastating. And perhaps that gives you an idea of just how much of a perfectionist, just how much of a control freak and worrier, I can be. And I was beyond indignant; I was angry. How could I have messed up these stupid things? How could I have found myself seemingly without enough time?
Now to Ecclesiastes 10. There are a few verses here that suddenly became relevant to me last night:
Dead flies make the perfumer’s ointment give off a stench;
so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. (Ecclesiastes 10:1 ESV)If the iron is blunt, and one does not sharpen the edge,
he must use more strength,
but wisdom helps one to succeed.
If the serpent bites before it is charmed,
there is no advantage to the charmer. (Ecclesiastes 10:10-11 ESV)The toil of a fool wearies him,
for he does not know the way to the city. (Ecclesiastes 10:15 ESV)Even in your thoughts, do not curse the king,
nor in your bedroom curse the rich,
for a bird of the air will carry your voice,
or some winged creature tell the matter. (Ecclesiastes 10:20 ESV)
I know this is getting a little convoluted, but bear with me. One last verse, not from Ecclesiastes, that I think will bring this all into context:
Exodus 20:3: “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
“Oops” is the understatement of the year for me. Yeah… Getting back to those details about me—for a long, long time these have been my gods:
- perfectionism
- academia (my GPA)
- my body (because I can control this)
The answers to those 3 questions (if I’m being honest with myself):
- Where is your identity? The identity of any person can be wrapped up in what they worship. For me, those things are, a lot of the time, idols.
- Why are you afraid to be sincere + speak the truth? Because to be sincere means to reveal myself and, thus, my issues with control and worry. To speak the truth means to be a hypocrite (which I am rightly afraid to do) because I myself entertain the worries and fears that I encourage others to dismiss.
- Why do you like to worry? This is the kicker. It’s because I’m afraid that that’s all I am—my accomplishments, my perfectionism. I’m afraid that if I lose my worry, I also lose all of that—I lose my gods, and then I am left in a foreign land where I am a stranger before the King of that place.
Now to Ecclesiastes:
Dead flies make the perfumer’s ointment give off a stench;
so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor. (Ecclesiastes 10:1 ESV)If the iron is blunt, and one does not sharpen the edge,
he must use more strength,
but wisdom helps one to succeed.
If the serpent bites before it is charmed,
there is no advantage to the charmer. (Ecclesiastes 10:10-11 ESV)
All that I have done through perfectionism, through worry, all of it is polluted, all of it is truly madness! If I do not act with the right motives, with wisdom instead of folly, then all of it is dead flies in the ointment of the perfumer. It is all worthless.
Similarly, what good is it if I tame the serpent only at the cost of being bitten? What use is it if I accomplish all these things if, in the process, I destroy my soul by worshipping other gods? Why should I hack away at a task with a blunt edge, with worry, when I could simply sharpen it with wisdom before moving on?
The toil of a fool wearies him,
for he does not know the way to the city. (Ecclesiastes 10:15 ESV)
Where do I think I am going to find myself at the end of this road? Where do I think control and perfectionism and worry will take me? Is it to the city? Or do they take me to the barren places? To the waterless places where my soul will only thirst all the more without relief? For if there is one thing that I am, it is weary.
Even in your thoughts, do not curse the king,
nor in your bedroom curse the rich,
for a bird of the air will carry your voice,
or some winged creature tell the matter. (Ecclesiastes 10:20 ESV)
It’s so easy to complain. It’s so easy to curse my King when I go through trials, through tests. How easy it is to miss the point intentionally, to listen to the little voices that whisper “coincidence” when problems arise.
The defining quality of a crash course is, well, the “crash” part of it, and I’ve been investing a heckuva lot of money in glue stock.
Songs of Ascent 