“God is in control.” Words meant to comfort. Words spoken when I lose control—whether through error in judgement, the economy, the uncensored hand of death, actions of those I love, or the wildness of the elements. Is it because I cannot bear to lose control that I grab God by the shoulders and shove Him into the driver’s seat? “Jesus, take the wheel!”

“God is in control,” country singers sing and preachers preach and friends placate.

“God is in control.”

Some can’t quite get those words out of their mouth because they have looked around. If God were in control, wouldn’t She do something about the multi-billion-dollar porn industry in the West, and war in the Middle East? What about starvation? “Well, God is ultimately in control,” we say, as if God has a free pass to wait to use His control for our good until later.

It’s later.

“God is in control, but He gives us the power of choice.” This I have believed my whole life, but I don’t know what it means. Ministers explain it with scripture and compelling illustrations, but I’m lost. So, God can send an angel down here to save someone’s life (control), but She can’t tell me what to do (choice)? Wait, but She does tell me what to do and I’m supposed to obey Her. So She does control me, but only with my consent? Is that consent once-and-for-all, like a blank check for God to sign my destiny, or does my consent essentially stay in my bank account, spent only as I respond to God?

Perhaps parenting holds a partial answer to these questions. Last I noticed, I am not in control of my kids. I employ emotional manipulation, vocal volume, stonewalling, imposed consequences, removal of privileges, or plain old anger, but my kids do as they choose with their minds, their little arms and legs, their exasperating attention spans. My children did not consent to my control when they were born into our family, nor do they sign over their destiny as they reach a more mature age. They don’t think, Wow. Look at this adult who knows more than I do. I’ll let her make my decisions.

On the contrary, they watch me make my own decisions and think, I want to do that. When do I get to be independent? And they practice independence daily, as they leave food on their plates, sneak candy, take 27 minutes to dress, give spontaneous hugs, and say, “You’re the best Mama in the world.” Those words are meaningful precisely because I am not in control of them.

What if God is not in control? What if He doesn’t choose to comfort us, to save us, by being in control?

A visit to my Strong’s concordance reveals the word “control” is not in the Bible. At least not in the King James Version. More recent versions have a handful of instances. A Google search doesn’t reveal anything about the origins of this saying—that will be a research project for another day. I suspect somewhere along the line we devised “God is in control” to sidestep unanswerable questions. But this leaves us in a precarious position.

Gregory Boyle writes, “God no more has a plan than holds a grudge. There is, of course, a short hop between ‘God had a plan for me to become an orthopedic surgeon’ to ‘My four-year-old son just died of a brain tumor.’ Short hop. You can’t have this both ways. If God ‘plans’ you getting your medical license, God also has orchestrated your son’s demise.”¹ I may not share Boyle’s certainty, but it makes me think twice about saying God is in control.

If God is not in control, what is He? In charge? This, too, is a question for another day. Today I want to consider what I gain and what I lose if God is not in control.

First, what do I lose? I lose the comfort of predictability. God is not holding the wheel. The blessings do not rain down as the prayers go up. The miracles don’t happen in proportion to my prayer life. Chaos is actually chaos, not just the appearance of it. Natural disasters are natural. Most disappointing of all is that if God doesn’t get to control me, I don’t get to control Her.

But, I gain intimacy. The word “intimacy” brings up other words, like “close” and “safe,” images of connection. Yet real intimacy is messy. In the book False Intimacy, I was surprised to find this statement: “Within the enjoyment of real intimacy, both partners experience fear of being exposed, fear of abandonment, fear of loss of control, and fear of their respective sexual desires.”² I had assumed those fears indicated a lack of intimacy, yet when I reflected on this definition and my own experience of intimacy in marriage, the two were a perfect match. It was in encountering fear, speaking it and feeling it, that Michael and I escaped the confines of our good behavior and embraced being broken together. Belonging.

How does this work with God? Does He feel these fears? Is intimacy vulnerable for Her? “Intimate” may be the best word to describe getting stripped naked, beaten, nailed to thick boards, and erected like a monument. Intimacy—releasing control of image, of hateful people, of relationship. Watching those who love you run for cover, and those who loathe you crowd closer. Exposure, abandonment, loss of control—it’s all there. It’s our invitation to reveal our own exposures, abandonment, and inability to control, and in so doing to become one flesh with God.

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Endnotes:
¹Boyle, Gregory. The Whole Language (page 5)
²Schaumburg, Harry. False Intimacy (page 18)