Tag Archives: control

I Will Change, I Will Not Change

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I fear Christian belief will have no real impact on my life. I’m aware that addiction, divorce, and abuse in the home wreak havoc among Christians as well as non-Christians. And the things we do to feel better about ourselves happen among Christians as well—keeping our stories and our houses as clean as possible, consuming coffee and sugar at alarming rates, moving from one place (or church) to another to escape the consequences of a damaging lifestyle or broken relationship.

Until recently, I spent little time considering the opposite fear—that God will influence, transform or otherwise impact me and my life. Carl McColman, author and fellow blogger, suggests, “Our deepest fear is not that there is no God. Our deepest fear is that God does exist and wants to become an intimate part of our lives, changing us forever.”1 I want to argue with him, but I can’t. I do fear God’s influence in my life. Chances are, He has a different list (does God have lists?) of priorities than I do, and His presence will affect change. I cannot sit with Him and expect to remain the same. This is unnerving at best, terrifying at worst, but also the thing I want more than anything else.

I hold both fears at once—that I will be changed, and that I will not be changed. McColman puts it in relational terms—the fear of loneliness/abandonment, or the fear of being engulfed. I want to keep God, and my dearest human companions, in a safe little space between those two realities. In this space, I will experience a controlled situation in which I am neither left nor overwhelmed.

There is no such space in intimate relationship. It’s not that God is in the business of leaving or overwhelming people. Rather, relationship is consent to be influenced. I am changed by the people I spend time with, and I, in turn, affect those same people. Is this also true in divine relationship? The Apostle Paul wrote, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV)

I’m not sure I want to be unveiled with God. Isn’t that dangerous? Maybe we can work something out where I get to wear a veil. I’ll submit my list of prayer requests without approaching God. No need to bother Him; I know He’ll take care of things. Also, if His activity in my life is based on me doing a good job, I don’t need to spend time with Him. I can focus on being a kind and productive person, and He’ll take it from there. There are countless ways to avoid the influence of relationship. Keep it professional. Make rules. Perform. Retreat.

I suppose “influence” would be a good word to describe what happens when two people spend time together. Where does that leave control? “To have control is to have the power to run something in an orderly way.”2 Does God have this power? Is the universe orderly? Yes, it is, and no, it isn’t.

Influence is “the power to change or affect someone or something—especially the power to cause changes without directly forcing those changes to happen.”3 If I say God has influence but not control, have I emasculated Him in my view, or am I getting closer to freedom?

In a previous post I wrote, “Perhaps love is the pain of not being in control.” At the time of that writing, I explored what this means in terms of fearing my own feelings. Feelings often run free of logic and control, and therefore, I have tended to avoid them. Now, as I consider this statement in terms of relationship with God, it occurs to me this is a two-way street. God relinquishes control of me, and I relinquish control of Him. I believe this is painful for both of us.

At the same time, it is comforting. I approach God without the intent to control Him, knowing that likewise, He will not control me. I do not consent to be engulfed; I consent to be influenced. I do not consent to abandonment; I consent to a life that is not well-controlled, which is messy because love and free will are messy. Proximity includes vulnerability.

It is here that I may begin to love God. Also here is the shocking possibility that God allows me to influence Him. I don’t know how to love the Lord my God with all my heart. The best I’ve come up with in the past involved being respectful to Him, and nice to the person in front of me. There’s nothing wrong with that. But is it relationship?

I find no tidy conclusion, but I’ve stumbled upon a desire for consensual relationship with God. And so, I consent to be influenced. I consent to the pain of love, which is the pain of not having control. I accept that knowing God will change me, and it will not change me. I receive the fear of being an average human, the terror of becoming more, and all that it means to love because He first loved me.

Endnotes:
1McColman, Carl. The Big Book of Christian Mysticism, page 204.
2https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/control#:~:text=To%20have%20control%20is%20to,remote%20control%20for%20a%20television
3https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/influence#:~:text=In%20modern%20use%2C%20the%20noun,something%20in%20an%20important%20way

Love Is a Pain

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I escaped the anxiety epidemic, I thought. Until this year.

I didn’t admit depression. Until last year. Only after taking antidepressants did I know the truth of my years of depression.

It’s late September, and anxiety adds itself to my truth. Anxiety feels different than depression, which for me exhibits as heaviness, intense overwhelm, and anger. Instead, a growing undercurrent of angst and tension in my thoughts and feelings came as a surprise—anxiety. I feel resentful about being “the only one who cleans around here,” nervous about irritating my friends, and more grouchy than usual because the kids “never listen to me”—anxiety.

I can’t blame a change in circumstances; life carries on as usual. I have to own an internal landscape of crankiness. In my journal I write, “I’m anxious but somehow I’m not letting it rise up. I’m not connecting well with myself or others. I don’t know what to do with this inner Rubik’s Cube of mental and emotional colors. There is no ‘lining up,’ just a lot of turning and twisting and muttering. I don’t feel depressed or exhausted, just a buzz of not-okay-ness, and fretting about what other people are thinking or doing.”

When my inner world gets uncomfortable, I settle for the companionship of fear. When I settle for fear, I choose to think instead of feeling. If I think rather than feel, I’ll have an an acceptable answer for most questions. If I think rather than feel, I tell myself, I reduce the risk of rejection; I avoid confronting what I don’t understand about myself; I cannot get stuck in feelings. If I think rather than feel, I will be dependable, and that, my friends, is very important.

I fear transience of warm feelings, and permanence of cold feelings.

I fear loss of control. Not measuring up. Disappointing someone. Sigh. Doesn’t that essentially mean I live afraid of life? No wonder I feel anxious. I can’t stop the world and get off.

Now that I know I’m anxious, what’s next? There are too many options: medication or meditation, solitary confinement (okay, that’s more of a wish than a real option), exercise, more coffee or less coffee, structure or flexibility.

I’ve been through this enough times to know fixing is not the loving response. But what is? Does love sit in the feelings? Maybe the loving response is reception—not the kind with cake and punch, but the kind that’s about welcome. Could receiving feelings be different than sitting in feelings? More like open hands and less like sackcloth and ashes?

When I think about setting the emotional tone in myself and in our home, I think of zen peacefulness—wouldn’t it be lovely if I were un-ruffleable?

But love is not only the ocean’s vast calm. It also knows the waves of anger, fear, and bitterness. Is it a ship? A lighthouse? A squawking seagull? What form does love take in the steady pounding of reality?

Perhaps love is the pain of not being in control.

I know well the pain of trying to control, and the aftermath of disconnection when I succeed in control. I am less familiar with the pain of releasing control. This pain is the pain of God’s very existence; the pain of having children who have a choice.

I want to control my children. I really, really want to control them. Also, I don’t want to control them. I know it’s not love, and desperately I want to love them.

I want to feel the raw pain of love rather than the grasping anxiety of control. I want my discomfort to be worthwhile. Let me trade in an obsession with control for the wildness of not being in control. Here my soul will meet with God, inside the terrifying invitation to feel. I will feel the risks of rejection, unknowing, and transience. They accompany my choice to love, and indicate that I have chosen to feel. God is here. Let control crash and burn. Loving is enough.

Also, I will medicate, and meditate, and drink more or less caffeine.

Shout out to my friend KL for the Rubik’s Cube analogy, and to Julia Cameron for the invitation to name fears that compel me to think instead of feeling.

I Cannot Dilute Him

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The point is not that I need to lie down naked in front of God. The point is that lying down naked in front of God wouldn’t change anything. His dignity toward me is steadfast, no matter how many layers I choose to wear or not to wear.

The factors that calibrate human relationships cannot manipulate God.

I cannot change His thoughts toward me with a face—my pleasant face, neutral face, tired face, or I’ve-had-it face.

Makeup or the lack thereof, pimples and scars and freckles and wrinkles, splotchy or smooth skin—these do not inform God’s opinion of me.

Nor does greasy, flat hair or frizzy, wild hair affect the space between us.

No item of clothing in my wardrobe will invite Him closer, or keep Him at a safe distance.

I cannot chase Him away by being dull; nor do I keep Him close with intelligence or charm.

I cannot stun Him with silence, nor overwhelm Him with words.

I cannot frighten Him with cursing, nor improve His esteem by sharing my deepest insights.

All the ways I present myself to the people around me are no presentation to God. He sees it all, for He is keenly aware of me. And, with or without it, His embrace remains.

I cannot control Him, for He is not human, but divine.

His first ingredient is love, and I cannot dilute Him.

No Formula

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No Formula

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for the ways
we fertilize change
and for the ways
change escapes
our eager efforts.
We work,
and something happens,
or nothing.
We do not work
and nothing happens,
or something.

We try hard,
then harder.
The problem worsens.
We invest long years
until: success,
or, the loss of a dream
we didn’t know was a dream
until it vaporized
and broke our hearts.

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for giving us much influence
and little control,
for standing beside us
as we watch our labor
burn to the ground,
or produce one hundred fold,
always saving us from the lie
that our value lives in
what we have made or lost.
Your grace exposes our folly
and assures us that whether
our legacy is beauty or pain
(likely both)
we are fields of treasure.

Soul Hurry

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The “Skill”

I have a skill I don’t like to talk about, but I’m going to talk about it anyway. My skill is this: I can hurry even when there’s nothing to do. I know, it sounds impossible. But I assure you I’m actually quite good at it. Partly because I can hurry with my mind and/or my body, so even if I’m sitting on the couch I can do a lot of mental hurrying. Hurrying is the evil twin of my long-cherished idol, productivity. I feel safest when I am getting things done, but if I can’t actually be accomplishing something there is always hurry to help me feel better.

The Story

If I go back really far, I think I can remember a time before hurry was my identity. As a young child, I didn’t have to worry much about time because the grownups did that. I could play without thinking about time or schedule. I remember spending hours washing one meal’s dishes – making as many soap bubbles as possible. And those are good memories. Kids are skilled at being fully present (and very slow).

As my awareness of time increased and my responsibilities grew, somewhere along the line I realized that if I hurried I was valuable. People who get things done are desirable – as family members, students, employees, and even friends. And it’s not that getting things done is bad. But for me it was a slippery slope from being a hard working teen to adopting hurry as a frame of mind and a way of having value. Without my knowing it, hurry became a deeply ingrained part of my identity.

Then – a couple decades later – God asked our family to make a lifestyle change – to pursue slowness, so to speak. Around the first of this year we eliminated most afternoon and evening commitments and reduced weekend activities. We began to more carefully consider all the invitations and opportunities that came our way. Then the pandemic hit and our pace has slowed even more.

Somehow the slowing of my schedule has opened my eyes to the hurry of my soul. Here I am with only the basic tasks of living before me, and I’m still carrying around this sense that I am not being productive enough or fast enough. I’m still rushing my kids, even though we have nowhere to go. I begin to wonder, do I have hurry in my soul? How is it possible that I can have nothing on my schedule and still feel compelled to rush through the dishes; to lament a to-do list not finished when I have all of tomorrow to finish it; to hurriedly try to fold the last load of laundry while yelling instructions to my children to get ready for bed?

The Evidence

I’ve noticed hurry has many faces. Most of them are smiled upon in our culture. Here are some of the ways hurry shows up in my life:

  • Efficiency: if I’m not washing or shaving something, I’m not in the shower – I never just stand under the water. When I carry groceries in from the car, I bring them all in one load even though it cuts the circulation off in my arm and I can’t open the door because my hands are full.
  • Another face of hurry is busyness: oh, there’s a slot on my calendar not filled? I’ll plan a play date, sign up for an evening class, start exercising with a friend, start a new craft project, clean the basement.
  • And let’s not forget always saying “yes”: sure, I can direct VBS; I can listen to all your problems; I can make 21 meals a week from scratch; I can do that project; I’ll be a board member and deaconess and volunteer at the elementary school.
  • Hurry also shows up in multitasking: I always feel better when I’m doing laundry and dishes at the same time, catching up on emails while helping my daughter with homework, crocheting while I watch a movie… you get the idea.
  • Another evidence of hurry in my life is that I cannot abide waiting. Say we’re leaving the house to exercise. I’m ready, but my husband is just putting his socks on. It would cause me physical discomfort to wait for one minute. So I start something – wipe down the kitchen counter, take out the trash, open some mail, pull weeds in the yard. Waiting is simply too uncomfortable. If I have to wait, I immediately find something to do. Consequently, I am often the last one in the car when our family leaves the house. Everyone else buckles up while I’m finishing the thing I started because I couldn’t wait.
  • I am never early to anything. Being early is excruciating. Everyone is just milling around; nothing is happening. I could have been doing something else with this time. I would much rather be five minutes late than shoot for being on time and somehow end up five minutes early.
  • While I’m airing all my dirty laundry, I will also note that I am really bad at “hanging out.” The concept of getting together with one or more friends for an indefinite period of time with an indefinite purpose is terrifying. I thrive in groups with a purpose – exercise, accountability, music, church, mom groups. Also, I can probably count on one hand the number of times in my life I have called someone “just to chat.” I simply don’t know how, and the vulnerability along with the potential of wasting time make this pastime completely out of the question for me.

I think you get the idea. Hurry is showing up all over the place in my life. It feels like I gave hurry permission to be my master. Did I sign something without realizing it? How did I sell my soul and not even notice?

Hurry is like a drug. It’s my go-to when I feel stressed or vulnerable. And if I’m not hurrying myself, I hurry the people around me. I ask my kids, “Why are you still eating?” “How could you possibly take that long to put away one toy?” “You’ve been in your room for 20 minutes and you’re still not dressed?!” I hurry my husband: get out of bed faster; get the yard work done sooner; how can you possibly spend that long in the bathroom?! As John Mark Comer says of his slowed-down life, “I feel… like a drug addict coming off meth.” (From his book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry)

The Underlying Causes

So the evidence is in: I have a problem, and I’m calling it hurry. But what is underneath the hurry? I am afraid of something – no, two things. I am afraid of finding out I am not valuable, and I am afraid of finding out I am not in control. I believe the first statement is false and the second is true, but somehow they get all entangled inside me.

Not valuable. Somewhere deep in myself I’m still not sure about the gospel. This too-good-to-be-true story drenched in reckless mercy and grace… it can’t really apply to me, right? Some days this is my question. I don’t ask it that boldly. No, I scold myself for making another mommy mess-up. I replay the words I wish I hadn’t said. I keep score.

Other days, when I’m feeling a bit more successful at life, I get cocky. I think I have some control over my life, and I’m exercising my skills – including hurry in all its forms – to insure a good outcome. On these days, I don’t have questions. I feel self-sufficient, and I think maybe I’m finally figuring life out. I take comfort in the (false) security of control (let’s be honest, this is me playing god – being my own savior).

The Antidote

I wonder, what is the antidote to hurry? What will soothe and satisfy this scrambling and striving in my soul? Could there be a truth that addresses both the striving days and the cocky days? The I’m-not-good-enough and the I-(think)-I’m-in-control days? I’m reading John chapter five and am arrested by verse 30: “I can do nothing on my own. I judge as God tells me. Therefore, my judgment is just, because I carry out the will of the one who sent me, not my own will.” (NLT) Not my own will. Is this the way? What if I’m not living for myself? What if my choices are not calculated to control my own destiny? What if a real life is a life lived in continual surrender: not my will, but Thine. Perhaps the way to cease striving, to live a valuable life, is to be in a constant state of surrender. Perhaps the way to stop grasping for control is to trust the will of Someone who is in control.

I have circled around this concept before. I have marveled that surrender is, in fact, freeing. That if I’m not in charge of my life, there is nothing to worry about. I’m just doing what the Big Guy is telling me to do, and it’s His job to work it all out. But the lies I have internalized fight back. The moments – day in and day out – letting His agenda be more important than mine – these moments are hard. I do cry tears as I let go. And sometimes I hold on and won’t let go. It is a slow practice, and imperfect is a hard road for a recovering perfectionist.

The Trade

Am I willing to make the trade? Will I trade control for trust and hurry for surrender? Rather than the exhausting cycle of hurry and control, I could let surrender and trust feed on each other: trust allowing me to surrender, and surrender sending me skidding into the necessity of trust. I could let my Creator speak the truth of my value over me, and I could admit that He is in control.

Here I am, hurrying and worrying through slow and quiet days. Here God shows up, opening my eyes to this parasite on my soul, and offering to take it from me. Slowly He heals, for He knows that giving up control will cause bleeding. Yet He never gives up, because He is determined that I should have the best of His gifts, the abundance of His grace, the wonder of His mercy, the safety of His companionship.

As I haltingly respond to this invitation to trade hurry for surrender, I repeat to myself the “Creed of the Beloved” so simply and beautifully penned by Bobby Schuller:

I’m not what I do.
I’m not what I have.
I’m not what people say about me.
I am the beloved of God.
It’s who I am.
No one can take it from me.
I don’t have to worry.
I don’t have to hurry.
I can trust my friend Jesus and share his love with the world.