I'm a control freak.

It's not that I desire power, or that I have to be a leader to be happy.  It's simply that life, on the surface, is much like trying to regain control of a car that is traveling at 100 miles per hour through a narrow canyon, with no brakes.  Oh, and the steering wheel just fell into your lap.  So, I desire to regain that control.  The problem is, the only possible way out of that situation is to hand the wheel to God and pray that you be saved.  You simply aren't going to stop that car any other way.

But still I've tried.  And the one thing that every attempt has had in common is complete and utter failure. All attempts to control your own destiny are in vain. 

So what, then, does this have to do with free will?

Yes, we are free to make our own choices.  The Bible tells us so.  It also tells us that God knew every hair on our heads long before we were ever born.  The concept of free will in Christianity is tricky, because we are given the ability to make choices, but through his omnipotence God has known and understood every decision we will make, and he has always know them.   And those decisions are far simpler for us than we ever let ourselves believe.  Brace yourself, because this is going to come as a shock to your system: the only decision we ever have to make for each situation we face is whether or not to leave it in God's hands.  It really is that simple.

Let's face it: we will never, ever be able to truly control another person, let alone an entire population.  The hardest part to accept about free will and about giving our problems to God is accepting that the world does not revolve around each one of us individually.  You are merely one of more than six billion cogs in a very large machine — and you, with your incredibly narrow view of the world, can never begin to understand how even a seemingly benign decision that shouldn't have any effect on anyone else can have a domino effect down the line.  You live in the here-and-now, and what you can accept in your world is limited to what your senses can comprehend.  Don't feel bad, you're far from alone in that mindset.  You have billions of brothers and sisters in the same boat.

So how does one go about "giving it to God"?   Easy: pray for it.  Prayer is, as a Christian, your best friend, your strongest weapon, and your greatest comfort.  It is a direct communication between you and your maker.  Pray that God will take your burdens.  Sounds easy, right?

Wrong.

The hard part isn't giving your problems to God.  The real struggle is not trying to take back the wheel.  We stumble because God doesn't always handle things the way that feels the best to us.  Sometimes you have to lose something to gain something else.  And while that something else may not be what you want, it will most definitely be what you need at the time.

Case in point: I've been dealing with two sources of anxiety in my life.  The first was a job search.  I found a listing that seemed to be a great fit, scheduled an interview, and asked God for the strength, wisdom and confidence I needed to make a good impression.  The interview went great, and I didn't try to contact them again until I felt it being impressed upon my heart to make a follow-up contact.  I kept my nose out of God's work, and I will be starting my new job on October 22.

On the other hand, I was dealing with another issue that has been a point of contention for me for a while now.  My impatience got the best of me, and I screwed things up big-time because I wasn't going where God was leading me.  And every step I took only got me deeper into the mud.  See, problems like these compound themselves: once you've screwed up, every attempt you make at fixing it on your own stands a very good chance of resulting in a situation that is far more twisted than that from which you were trying to escape to begin with.  Much like quicksand, the harder you struggle the worse off you'll end up.

The bottom line is this: you have to do nothing more than make a simple, binary decision when faced with adversity: give it to God, or go it alone.  The good news is that we all know the right choice; the bad news is that we usually fail to believe it.

I leave you with the following:

And so I stand here
Looking at all that I have made
Fallen in ruin
And it would seem that

It's out of my hands
There's nothing I can do
The best laid plans
Again have fallen through
I though my world
Was under my command
Now I can't believe
It's out of my hands

My favorite delusion
I must control the universe
Failure brings freedom
You are God, and I'm not so…

It's out of my hands
There's nothing I can do
The best laid plans
Again have fallen through
I thought my world
Was under my command
Now I can't believe
Just how glad I am
It's out of my hands

And so I stand here
Looking at all that you have made
Learning to place my life
In your keeping

It's out of my hands
I know this much is true
The best laid plans
All belong to you
When I know my world
Is under your command
I can't believe
Just how glad I am
It's out of my hands

- Out of My Hands (Carolyn Arends)