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JMJ
"Yes, you frank souls, leave to God what is His business and carry on peacefully with your work. Be quite sure that whatever happens to your spiritual life or to your activities in the world is always for the best. Let God act, and abandon yourself to Him. Let the chisel and brush do their work, even though the brush covers the canvas with so many colors that, instead of a picture, it seems there is only a daub. Let us work together with the will of God by a steady and simple submission, a complete forgetfulness of self and concentration on our duties." (Abandonment to Divine Providence, Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade)
There are many attachments the common man will admit to, but power is usually not one of them. Believing he is content to leave ambition to the important and gifted, he quickly exonerates himself of that desire. Temporal power is out of his reach, and therefore holds no allurement. But, on closer examination, one should recognize that affinity for power is nothing more than the inordinate desire for control. (This is different than the healthy need for order, an antidote for the chaos that would ensue if a life was undisciplined.) One who refuses to relinquish control proves a detriment to himself, and those near him as this attachment weakens the trust that must be the foundation of any relationship.
Yet, more than this, when one clings to the illusion that he is complete master, vexation becomes his constant companion for, of course, his designs, however simple they are, may not always be His Designs. To repel the impulse to control a relationship or situation one must completely surrender himself to Divine Providence, even in trivial matters, for nothing is inconsequential to Our Lord. One must allow himself to be vulnerable in the hands of the Heavenly Father, not fearing or dreading His plan. Surrendering will not suddenly ameliorate a situation, nor make it less painful, but it will bring peace from being "quite sure that whatever happens to your spiritual life or to your activities in the world is always for the best."
