Do you grapple with God regularly over who has the right to control your life?

 If giving God control is as much a struggle for you as it is for me, keep reading.

I’m going to tell a little bit about what I’ve learned on my futile quest for control as well as share a couple of tips to spare you some time and pain in your journey to surrender. 

As I sat staring blankly in my Sunday evening church service, I realized, “God is in control.”

Crazy thought, right?

It sounds silly to admit my seemingly simple and obvious revelation, but that’s honestly what it was to me–a revelation.

The power of delusion

That Sunday, in the midst of my “deeply profound” revelation, I discovered the extent of my hypocrisy.

There I was, professing God’s plan, His love for humanity, and His great control over life, and all the while I’m hiding in a dark corner of my house concocting secret plans to make my life look exactly the way I want it.

Relatable?

I’ve told myself and others many times that I’m giving God control over various situation in my life. I’ve even told God that I’m giving Him control a time or two (or 200) in prayer.

But as soon as He does something that I don’t like, I immediately attempt to veto His decision.

Makes sense, right? No? It doesn’t to me either.

My power-struggle with God has existed for as long as I can remember.

It’s the reason that I nag, push, and prod people to do what I think is best.

It’s the reason that I’m constantly on the lookout for new methods of self-improvement.

It’s one of the major reasons that I developed an eating disorder in my preteens that I fostered for nearly ten years. (>You can read my full testimony post here<)

I want to be in control. Of everything. And everyone. All. The. Time.

Deep down I, along with my loved ones, might have guessed I that I struggle with such desires. I just didn’t realize how severe my addiction to control was until that Sunday night service. And it honestly shocked me.

The Problem with Control

Absolute, undeniable control–it’s so appealing, yet so impossible.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’d venture to guess that you, too, have wrestled with God in an effort to take control of your life.

There’s nothing quite like a power struggle with the great, almighty God of the universe.

The fact that we think we possess the knowledge and capability to determine the course of our lives is baffling.

Our quest for control is not only delusional but also inherently blasphemous.

But from what I’ve found in reading other blogs and listening to friends and family talk over the years, this quest for control is not an uncommon one.

Sadly, that isn’t surprising at all.

The Unfairness of It All

When I was young, I did not want my parents to get divorced. I wanted everyone to get along and be happy. I wanted to feel secure. I didn’t want God to say no to me. I wanted to feel loved, pretty, and unconditionally accepted.

I could go on and on with my wish list of wants, but I think you get the picture.

We want what we want when we want it. And we don’t want what we don’t want, especially when we don’t want

That’s pretty much it–humanity’s basic desire in a nutshell.

When experiences that we haven’t invited enter our lives or when unpleasant situations that we never expected occur, we’re usually left with a general sense of the unfairness of the world.

We feel cheated, hurt, and betrayed.

I’ve experienced it, and I’m sure you have too.

It’s life, and life–no matter how good–isn’t fair. It never will be fair no matter how strong our desire for it to be so (click to tweet). 

the solution to the delusion

We’ve now established that control is unobtainable and life is unfair–sad but true.

I know we both already knew that, but there’s something both freeing and disheartening about admitting it openly.

So let’s focus on the freeing aspect of that confession and shine some positive light on the disheartening part.

I want to share two life-changing, Biblical tips to to help you come to terms with aforementioned less-than-pleasant aspects of life, learn to release your false sense of control, and, hopefully, inspire you to surrender to God’s will.  

1. Pray at the start of every day

This one is a tough for me. And wouldn’t you know it’s the one that God put first and foremost on my mind whenever I had my little “revelation” last week.

It’s time for a little confession: I rarely pray–at least, I rarely pray well (which leads to another topic for another time, but more on that later).

When I say this out loud or write it down for the world to see, I realize that I must seem like a sad excuse for a Christian woman.

You may ask, “A Christian without a meaningful prayer life? How does that even work?!”

I know. I understand. Honestly, I don’t know how it works exactly. But apparently is doesn’t work to well since I’m just now realizing that giving God control is a must.

I’m convinced that my barely breathing prayer life is a monumental piece of the reason I struggle with life’s endless “injustices.”

I do the common Christian things. I read my Bible and do acts of service for my church home,  and I’m constantly working my way through a new devotional book about deepening my relationship with God. But I never make the time necessary for deep, meaningful prayer.

The Power in Prayer

Prayer, at its heart, embodies humility.

The act of praying reveals that we realize it’s not us in control, but God.

Prayer is a beautiful form of surrender (click to tweet). Both the problem and solution exist within that truth.

You fellow control freaks, you know what I mean.

When we pray to God, we willingly recognize Him as our almighty Creator. We bow down before Him both in our physical body and in the posture of our heart. Prayer is time spent offering God praise, asking Him for forgiveness, and telling Him the deepest yearnings of our heart.

All of these actions scream, “Surrender!” And that surrender is exactly the thing that some of us fear the most.

Prayer challenges us to silence our will in order for God’s voice to speak into our lives.

If we can stifle our pride long enough to go to God in the humble surrender of prayer, then we will find the peace that comes from giving God the control that He truly already has. 

2. LEARN ABOUT GOD BY READING HIS WORD

Prayer is the place where we can go to tell God more about ourselves. The Bible is the place where we can go to learn more about God.

There’s a strange thought that seems to exist in Christian circles. It’s the idea that if we “serve” God by following a certain rule set then He will transform into our personal genie and that He will protect us from all harm and make us feel warm and fuzzy inside for the rest of our days. 

In the wise words of Dwight K. Schrute, “False.”

Christiantity does not provide any guarantee of an easy life free of heartache.

Further, giving God control does not mean that we follow a certain set of rules. It means that we are willing to surrender to God’s will, regardless of whether or not it aligns with our wants. 

THE MYSTERY OF ENTITLEMENT

I subscribed to the idea of this cause and effect relationship with God for a long time–longer than I care to admit. 

It assumed if I did a and b then God would give me c–what I wanted.

Along with that assumption, came a false sense of entitlement. I told myself and God that He owed me, that I deserved a life free of problems, confusion, and tears.

When I realized that God was not going to arrange my life according to my exact specifications, I decided to take matters into my own hands.  And I thought, somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, that God would help me in my quest to fulfill my desires on my terms.

THE EVIDENCE IN SCRIPTURE

Where I got that idea– where anyone gets that idea–I’ll never know. We certainly don’t find it in scripture.

God promises to go before us to guide and protect us when we walk in obedience to His will. However, the protection that he promises is less from trials and disappointment and more from ourselves and the mistakes we make when walking in our sinful nature.

Our God is not a God who guarantees to give us an endless supply of our wants (though it can be argued that some of our wants will align with His if we walk according to His will, but I digress). Rather, He is a God who supplies our needs.

We feel our wants, but we do not always know our needs.

Jesus, God’s Son and our Savior, did not want to die on the cross.

He did not want to endure unbearable humiliation, excruciating pain, and agonizing separation from His father. In fact, Matthew 26:39 tells us that He prayed for God to let “this cup pass from Him.”

I’m sure you know how the story ends.

Thankfully, God did not give Jesus what He wanted that day. And, more thankfully still, Jesus was accustomed to giving God control and He humbly carried out His Father’s will that day.

God saw His Son’s wants, but He knew His needs. Jesus’ needs, along with the needs of the world, far outweighed His wants..

THE TRUTH ABOUT WANT

There’s a Lemony Snicket quote in The Carnivorous Carnival, book #3 of the amazing book series, A Series of Unfortunate Events, that reads as follows:

“But the sad truth is that the truth is sad, and that what you want does not matter. A series of unfortunate events can happen to anyone, no matter what they want.”

And sister, if that isn’t the truth, I don’t know what is.

Thankfully, unlike the Baudelaire orphans, we as Christians have a hope that even when God doesn’t give us what we want, He is giving us what we need.  

We may know that this is true somewhere deep within our heart. But our knowledge of that hope often lacks the strength required to inspire us to trust in God’s best.

What I suddenly realized on that Sunday evening is that though things rarely go the way that I want, they always go the way that they are supposed to.

I understand that can be a difficult thing to accept, especially in the midst of heartbreak, trauma, and devastation.

But I promise it is true.

He creates beauty from ashes and He can use all things for His good.

God is in control. 

Surrendering our wills and giving God control is the most beautiful thing we can do with our life.

He has a plan for your life, just as He has a plan for mine. And if we can keep ourselves from interfering long enough, He will bring that plan to pass.