Who is in control?

I'm such a fundy :P
In my heart, my answer to the question "Who is in control?" Is automatically to gleefully shout out: "GOD!"
And yes, that hasn't changed.
What HAS Changed is my concept of my own control. It used to be that I thought God was in control of everything to the point of me literally asking God, as a wonderful Ravelry poster Gwanla said today, "wether I should go right or go left."
I dont see that there's anything wrong with that... I think it's admirable to seek God's will in everything and I pray that I will always continue to do so.
Here's where it gets wierd, though.

I realized recently, within the last year, that when I was reading my Bible, it wasn't always just ME and GOD.
There was alot of inbetween stuff that I personally didn't understand, concepts I needed to grasp, and things I needed to learn to mature. And so as I studied my bible in my daily devotions, I did several things.
I read the verse:

"But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He has sent, Him you do not believe. You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of me.
But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life."
-John 5:38-40


First, I would go to the reference verses and the commentary:

no commentary.
reference:
is 8:20
20 To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
is 34:16
16 " Search from the book of the LORD, and read:
Not one of these shall fail;
Not one shall lack her mate.
For My mouth has commanded it, and His Spirit has gathered them.
lu 24:27
27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.

It begins to paint a picture: Jesus is telling them that his presence is a fulfillment of the scripture.
But still, I feel that God has led me to this verse today for a reason. And I haven't taken from it much more than an encouragement that Jesus is the Way. Maybe that's all. Maybe He wants to give me more from that.

My initial response might be to ask my pastor. Or to ask a friend. Or to look up the words in the strong's concordance. Or to look up the passage in any number of bible handbooks. Or to bring it up at a bible study.

ANd that's where it happens: suddenly I've given control of my biblical interpretation to another! Suddenly, my pastor, who is a scriptural authority, or my author of my bible handbook, or the author of my study bible notes, or Mr. Strong... that person becomes the theologist that I have entrusted to help me gain more insight.

when I realized that ALL of us interpret the bible in one way or another, , it answered the question that had always bothered me: how can Mormons, Jehova's Witnesses, Catholics, Baptists, Pentacostals, Presbytarians, and even Unitarians read the Bible, the same bible, and then come to such varied and different conclusions about doctrine?
I've always known that we do this on some level..but I never realized the implications until recently. Suddenly, it doesn't make me want to bash my head against a wall whenever I hear someone quote scripture "out of context." I say that in quotations because they aren't always doing it out of context. They are often doing it "from their own interpretation." "from their own theological perspective."

What do we do when one verse means one thing to one person and one thing to another? Yes, ask God. Sure. But that's like saying... Oh, I don't know. "Get out of the boat, and walk on the water." It's not the right answer.
The right answer is to look and see if our interpretation is historically and archeologically valid. Can we prove-- or at least, not disprove-- through science, history, or social history that this was so? Can we, at the very least, prove that the first Christians, those who walked with Christ, or who were discipled by those who KNEW Jesus Christ in the flesh, believed this way?
In this way, God speaks to us.
THEN, as we build a correct theology, we are able to go deeper and to receive accurate knowledge of the truth and to find more profound meaning in the text than just the surface meaning.

That's how I "came home to Rome," because I can now show you, in every doctrinal point that I believe, WHY I believe what I do. Not only based on scripture, which is absolutely necessary, but based on the fact that my predecessors, the earliest recorded Christians, believed and taught and protected as truth these same things.

Because of that, I have chosen to give my own control over to the church, to allow the church to have a part in how I interpret scripture, and to see that I have chosen to give the interpretation of the things I find "difficult" or "complex" to be from true sources of early Christianity, sources which I know will be accurate because they were the initial "defenders of the faith!"

Because of that, I can trust that the "hard verses" will be interpreted correctly.
And through that confidence, I am free to hear God's voice in my morning devotions without fear that I will err and hear anything other than Him:

I know now that Eucharistic theology demonstrates the importance of the verse above. Jesus said this just before he fed the great multitude (6:1-12), and did so giving thanks over the bread and protecting what remained as a predecessor of the eucharistic feast. In relation to the Eucharist, I can look at the verse above and hear Jesus saying: "I am the Word, and you will find me in the scriptures, but do not neglect to meet me in the Eucharist, where you can come to Me for life."

"But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He has sent, Him you do not believe. You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of me.
But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life."
-John 5:38-40

I can not tell you how much deeper and more beautiful that simple passage of scripture is to me now.... I am loving every minute of this walk. And all of that because I was finally willing to admit that we ALL interpret scripture.