So we had to take the cat to the vet. Not for anything special, just her annual checkup and rabies shot. However, we did not enjoy the trip, mostly because she really does not enjoy the trip. From the moment she gets in the car until we are inside the vet’s office, she emits these plaintive meows every 2-3 seconds. Now the cat really doesn’t have anything to complain about. We don’t even put her in a carrier: she is sitting in my lap, her favorite place to be (yes, that is her in the picture, under my iPad). And she likes the vet just fine. There’s no complaining while we’re in the building. However, the minute we’re back in the car, she starts up again and cries all the way home, until someone opens the car door, at which point she races to the step up into the house and waits impatiently for a human to unlock the door and let her back into her house.

Some of you may be asking, “What do your cat’s issues have to do with your blog about faith?” Well, I think her primary problem is a control issue. While she is always willing to run out of the house and explore if an open door is left unattended, she hates being in the car and being moved by something other than her own muscles. Corners are especially distressing. It doesn’t matter that where she’s going is someplace she needs to go for her health (or back to the comfort and safety of her own home). She just doesn’t want to be taken in the car.

That issue with control is a problem that I think many of us share. We may want God to tell us where to go, but we then want to get there in our own way, often under our own power. We ask God to provide, but we want to see the provision in advance. We want to know that there’s enough for tomorrow and next week and next month and next year. We really would like to control when and how we hear direction from God, sometimes. I want to know why this happened, and I want to know it now. I want to know what my next job should be and when I should move on from this one, and I want to know that now. And when we don’t have the control we want, we don’t meow plaintively, but we do often worry and fret and pray the same demanding prayer over and over.

What we need to recognize is that God doesn’t work that way. God didn’t tell Abraham where to go: “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” Genesis 12:1 (ESV). Most of us are familiar with this story, but we often don’t think through the reality of it, so let me paraphrase. “Leave the place you know and all but your closest family and start moving. At some point, we’ll get to where we’re going and I’ll tell you to stop.” Wow.

Then what about the children of Israel in the wilderness? When they complained about lack of food in Exodus 16, God sent manna and told them to collect just enough for that day (except on Friday, when they were to collect enough for the Sabbath the next day as well). He told them to eat all they collected that day and not save any, except on Fridays. Of course, some of them wanted to make sure they would have food for tomorrow and saved some, which went really well: “Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank” Exodus 16:31 (ESV).

God is not interested in giving us control over our lives, at least partly because he knows we do it badly. Instead, he wants to walk with us and provide what we truly need right now as we develop trust in him. He wants us to trust him when he takes us places and we’re afraid. He holds us close, just as I keep my poor cat in my lap, and he promises us his strength. Let’s be smarter than the cat, and trust the God who created and loves us (and is really in control even when we feel that we are).