It's All Robots!

Solitude (and subsequently Submission) have stretched, challenged and overall wrecked my self-perception that I was unaware was up for debate.  Essentially, it's been a curveball kind of week or two.

Reid shared this earlier, but it's worth repeating, "We are so accustomed to relying upon words to manage and control others.  If we are silent, who will take control?  God will take control, but we will never let him take control until we trust him.  Silence is intimately related to trust." (p. 100)

"Usually the best way to handle most matters of submission is to say nothing." (p. 112)

I feel a lot like I did last year around admin retreat time.  Everything relates to robots!

I've been mentoring this high school robotics team in Lodi, and in particular I've had a super hard time working with the main mentor/supervisor/teacher.  I could go into a lot of nerdy/uninteresting/ultimately non-essential "problems" I have with working with this mentor, but the only thing it comes down to is I have control issues.  Honestly, when it comes to robotics, I'm used to things going my way.  I'm used to teaching kids my way, structuring meetings my way, and building the robot my way.

What makes this new team so hard, more than anything else, is I don't get my way.  After the initial shock of not getting my way wore off, I experienced a flurry of words exiting my mouth in attempt to regain control.  The next few days I was almost out of breath at times trying to explain/validate/substantiate my thoughts about robotics and justify my superiority and worthiness.  

And in the midst of not getting my own way, I've been faced with the hard (but good) truth (thanks for sharing this earlier Pearl):

"What freedom corresponds to submission? It is the ability to lay down the terrible burden of always needing to get our own way." (p. 111)

At the time of writing this post, I can't say I've accepted and embraced this freedom yet.  But I am confident the Lord is teaching this truth to me through this robotics season.  Time to keep learning!

-Mike