Control is tricky. Self-control is vital to life. But too much control in human hands in any regard is dangerous. Godly self-control is continually submitting our behavior over to the Lord and following His wisdom.
“Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; He will neither fail you nor abandon you” (Deuteronomy 31:8).
“Mom, you didn’t even watch the movie with us!”
Though I’d slept through family movie night, I tossed and turned anxiously for the rest of the night while everyone else was sleeping. All through the darkness, I battled my fears with prayer, drifting off only for a little while, until the fears would churn in my stomach again. The thoughts spinning around in my mind were making my entire body remain on high alert. My daughter was in pain, and I couldn’t stop it from hurting. She was angry, and I couldn’t reach into her chest to soften her heart. As a mother, a fear of losing control of my child’s well-being puts a pit in my stomach. Since her diagnosis with T1D, the struggle for me to manage my own fear was spiraling out of control.
Control had become a thorn in my side, a constant mirage, and it was bleeding over into other situations in my daughter’s life. I don’t have the power to reverse her diagnosis, so I was reaching to eliminate any hurt I could in other areas of her life. As humans typically do when we meddle with what is only in God’s hands anyway, the hurt came anyway – and I had a big part in it because of my efforts to try and prevent it. Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D wrote for Psychology Today that “One of the most prevalent fears people have is that of losing control. This is the fear that if you don’t manage to control the outcome of future events, something terrible will happen.”
I ran to the Lord, and asked Him to help me help my daughter. To help me trust Him more, and allow me to fervently believe His will for her was far better than anything I could arrange, or pain I could prevent. Paul wrote:
“You say, ‘I am allowed to do anything’ – but not everything is good for you. And even though ‘I am allowed to do anything,’ I must not become a slave to anything” (1 Corinthians 6:12).
Control is tricky. Self-control is vital to life. But too much control in human hands in any regard is dangerous. Godly self-control is continually submitting our behavior over to the Lord and following His wisdom. Cohen continues, “The crux of the problem is the demand for certainty in a world that is always tentative and uncertain. The key to controlling your losing-control anxiety is letting go of your demand for certainty … letting go of the demand is the key to letting go of your fear … what you don’t have the power to do is to be omniscient…”
We are not sovereign, omnipotent, or omniscient. In other words, we are not everywhere, all-knowing, and perfect. The Lord is to judge what is best in every situation.
God knows every human heart, because He created every human heart. He knows what is going on in our minds. The Lord sees through what we hide from everyone else. He also digs out what we want to hold onto: grudges, misunderstanding, pride, selfishness. If we will give up our grip on these things, He is faithful to remove our burdens and in exchange provide a clear path back to peace. The first step in prying what ails us out of our own stubborn hands in confession. The apostle John wrote:
“But if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness” (1 John 1:9).
When we confess our sins, it frees up space in our hearts to do what we were created to do: bring glory to God. Hosea 14:2 says:
“Bring your confessions, and return to the LORD. Say to him, ‘Forgive all our sins and graciously receive us, so that we may offer you our praises.’”
Our enemy is aware of our struggle with control, and will continue his attempts to distract and divide until we arrive home in heaven. “As finite creatures living in a world affected by sin, we fear anything out of our control,” Kristen Wetherell wrote for The Gospel Coalition. “We fear what we can’t control because we’ve tried to control it, but we can’t because we aren’t God.” In those moments when our frustration and anger rises – when we can’t prevent a hurt we see coming – the Holy Spirit, alive and present in us through Christ Jesus, gives us the strength to restrain our gut reactions, and instead opt for a better way. Paul wrote:
“For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13).
The key to this truth is the source of the strength. Christ gives us strength. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says, “Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.” There is healing in confessing our desire to control situations in our lives, and submitting instead to the strength we have in Christ to give us the restraint, patience, and self-control we need to wait on the Lord instead of taking matters into our own hands.
My journey as a mother won’t get easier in this life. There will be challenges, sickness and hardship which I cannot prevent from happening to my children. But there will also be inexplicable joy only He can accomplish for them. Paul wrote:
“By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires” (2 Peter 1:3-4).
The fear of losing control will rob us of the peace Christ died to give us. He has given us life to the full. “Trying to take control of what can’t be ultimately controlled, we set ourselves up for fearfulness in times of inevitable trouble,” Kristen Wetherell wrote for The Gospel Coalition. “Since Jesus is Lord, we don’t have to be.” Because of Jesus, we can embrace Paul’s words:
“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done” (Philippians 4:6).
When we toss and turn at night, stomachs churning over hurt we cannot heal and things out of our control, the Lord is with us. We do not lie awake alone. He is there with us. Jesus is so worthy. God is so faithful. He sees what lies in the darkness, and His army of angels battle with us while we prayerfully fight. “God gives us the prescription for anxiety- and that is prayer,” the Bible Study Tools Staff explains, “we cannot understand supernatural peace until we surrender our mind to God’s ways and thoughts.”
In all things, we are called to lead in love, as Jesus does. He leads us to peace which surpasses all understanding, not anxious thoughts which keep us awake through the night. There will be trouble in this world, pain we cannot prevent. But God is bigger. His ways are not our ways, nor are His thoughts our thoughts. And so our reaction is this:
“In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone” (2 Peter 1:5-7).
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