Loss can not be controlled

Loss can not be controlled.  Oh, man thinks it can be.  We have loss control departments in business, even loss management certifications in education.  We study loss, meditate upon it, try to understand it - so we can control it.   But it will not be controlled.  Even when we reduce risk by greater safety measures, more responsible behaviors, and protective precautions loss... still... happens.

When it does, we get mad and search for someone to blame.  Why blame?  Because we believe loss only happens because some body didn't exercise their dominion properly.   Someone didn't control when they should have controlled.  Sometimes I have gotten dizzy as I my mind would spin trying to find the person to blame.  Is it the kids, my wife, my friends, the church, the government? If none of them, is it God?  Finding the person to blame, as an attempt to regain control, almost always ended poorly - broken or stress relationship.  As for blaming God.  It was a waste of the time.  He has no limit of time, so He can always out-wait me. 

There is another internal battle occurring when loss happens - guilt.  Guilt must be blame's twin brother.  If someone is to blame when loss happens, that person might be me.   Control, blame, guilt.  Oh what a poison. 

I find it hard to accept the fact that I can not control loss.  Loss will find its way into my world even when I am the most diligent, the most responsible, or the most prepared.  I just am not in control of the universe.  Now there are other reasons to be diligent, responsible and prepared; the merits of which are lost when I am driven to control. 

So some measure of loss is unavoidable.  It is as if it is built into the created order.   I don't mean the kind of loss where a tree dies and becomes fertilizer and food for other organism.  I mean a kind of loss that is an inconvenience at best and the cause of suffering in the worst.  Whatever my efforts are it can not be driven by trying to beat the unbeatable. 

This reality by experience now must collide with my theology.  I do not believe that God simply created a system called the universe and that it functions independently, void of morality and feeling.  The writers of Hebrews speaks of the universe being held together or "are being sustained" by his very word.  The universe works because God is telling it to every moment that it exist.   So God is orchestrating, not just tolerating, loss.  Some might not want to put the cause of loss in God's hand thinking it challenges his loving character. But,  I just can't envision the creator God running around just trying to keep the universe from falling apart like some cosmic Hans Brinker.  He isn't just barely holding the universe together.

If God is orchestrating at least some loss, does this mean He doesn't love, that He isn't compassionate, that He isn't good?  It definitely strikes a blow at any view of God simply trying to keep humans happy.  I am reminded of how many times I have heard people say "I know God wants me to be happy."   Yet, loss makes us unhappy.

Maybe the God who is running the universe isn't so concerned about us being happy.  Maybe He wants something more for us?

I am confident enough in the truth of Christianity to let God be the God He wants to be rather than the God I might want Him to be.