“God is not in control” opens a can of worms. Worms don’t line up neatly or make a sharp illustration, but they are certainly alive. Over the last few weeks I’ve jotted down a number of quotes, and perhaps each one is a worm in the can. In this post I’ll pick them up one at a time to observe and question, before putting them back.
Next week I’ll wrap up with Part 3 of “God Is Not in Control.”
“The God we’ve settled for is red in the face and pretends he doesn’t know us at parties. But the God we actually have is never embarrassed by us.”1
Beginning with my parents, and right on down the line, no human has exactly wanted me to be me. I don’t even want me to be me. But God is cool with me being me, despite the fact that on some level it costs us both. God would rather know me than control me.
“It seems clear there’s no way to manipulate God with how we pray or what we say.”2
This statement feels obvious, but when I came across it in the book I was reading last week, it stopped me. Somehow it doesn’t match what I’ve learned in church and Scripture. Doesn’t God respond to prayer based on our persistence, faith, and asking according to Her will? The Bible tells us to pray in these ways—for what, if not for results? Yet anyone who prays with regularity finds out there is no formula and God is unpredictable.
Do I really want a formulaic God? Although the unpredictability irritates me at times, manipulating or controlling God would put our relationship in a tenuous position. Once I’ve manipulated someone, I no longer know if they’re doing what they’re doing because it matters to them—or because I whined or threatened. I want to know that God does what matters to Her, and I suspect she, too, values authenticity from me. He is willing to accept some amount of pain and chaos as the cost of not manipulating or controlling. He actually wants me to be me.
“… love is wild territory. It’s where people who don’t have control go and linger … Finding the self inside the skin.”
How does a person love when they are alone? What does love look like when I’m awake in the middle of the night? Did the saints in solitude—whether by their will or against it—love while they were alone? Did they love anyone other than God?
Could I give another person my attention when I’m not with them?
Perhaps loving when I am alone is a practice, a lingering in love’s wild territory. Rehearse forgiveness. Remember my favorite things about my husband. Release control of situations I want to fix. Would loving someone while I’m not with them have an impact on them? On me?
If love is attention, could I gift myself my attention? Find “the self inside [my] skin”? Can I love when I’m brushing my teeth and notice my mind overheating, trying to make everything logical? Receive God’s love when I’m alone? This might look like peace or enjoyment—knowing I am centered, enough, delighted in, and aware more of who I am than what I am doing.
That love gets me every time / My heart changed my mind / And I gol’ darn gone and done it.4
Does a heart change a mind, or does a mind change a heart? I suppose it doesn’t matter. God is active in my mind to change my heart, in my heart to change my mind, in my body to mold my spirit, and in my spirit to touch my body. He may not be in control, but He makes up for it by being the thing that wouldn’t quit. What doesn’t yield to control may yield to loving persistence. Like the woman in Jesus’ parable who kept after the unjust judge, God keeps after us. She persuades us, not because of our morals, but in spite of them. He connects to our center, from which everything else grows. She is with us to be with us, not to control the future.
“Then he said to the woman, ‘I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you.’”5
I’m not sure I believe in the devil, but let’s assume for a moment that s/he does exist. Is the devil in control? Certainly his character doesn’t preclude control. And if love is not control, I’d say the devil is controlling—the opposite of love. From the Serpent’s first appearance in the garden, she has been suggesting that God controls us—“Don’t eat that.” “Don’t go there.” I can believe the lie and slip into a life attempting to manipulate God and hoping He’ll control me into salvation. Or I can say, “Love’s not like that. Love moves toward me with goodwill, not to force my hand, but to hold it.”
I’m made in God’s image, with agency and love. This leaves the devil in a difficult position. The thing she wants most is out of her grasp. It is only in deception that he has power. And what better way to deceive than to promote the message that God is in control?
“The one thing all of us—gay, straight, male, female, conservative, liberal, and on the continuum between the absolutes—have in common is the fear that we won’t be accepted, the fear of what we’ll lose if we are ‘known.’… being known is worth fighting for. It’s worth betting everything on. It’s risky. It’s terrifying. But it’s the only thing that matters.”6
God knows this, and it’s why He won’t control. He’d rather know me than control me, and He’d rather be known by me than controlled by me. God is not in control. She’s in something much better. She’s in love.
Endnotes:
1Boyle, Gregory. The Whole Language (page 7)
2Hill, Jeffrey D. Seeking the Triune Image of God in You (page 144)
3Raybon, Patricia. My First White Friend (page 12)
4lyric from Shania Twain’s song, Love Gets Me Every Time, https://www.musixmatch.com/
5Genesis 3:16, NLT
6Davis, Cynthia Vacca. Intersexion (pages 223, 232)
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