As shown by William Hensley's poem Invictus, mankind has an obsessive desire for control and to be master of one's fate. Much marital conflict emerges from someone in the relationship needing to exercise excessive control. The father of the faithful, Abraham, unfortunately did not always rely on faith, but occasionally took the expedient way (wanting to exercise control over the details), attempting to speed up God's timetable, but reaping some bitter fruit in the process. We have areas of our life directly under our control (such as overcoming our human nature), but must relinquish control of the major details of our lives to God Almighty's sovereign direction.