Control Disorders

Nothing kills adoration of Jesus like being a control freak. No matter how we slice the dice, we all love control and will do just about anything to ensure we’re holding the cards in our lives.

We scheme, plan, manipulate, readjust and stubbornly press on to see our desires accomplished. In our careers we either appease the boss to get a promotion or do as little as we can so we can get out and on to the more important things in life.

If our friends cause drama, we separate ourselves from them and move on, or we go in and fix the situation to the best of our ability. If our kids sink into trouble, we bail them out, punish, lash out, or do whatever we deem appropriate to get their behavior back under control.

We exercise control in every situation and relationship imaginable because we prefer life to operate in “us approved” ways. When the chain gets kinked by chaos or an unexpected event, we hunker down and try with all our might to get it back under control.

Our control really is a disorder caused by sin. If we can only rest peacefully when things are going our way, we have a control disorder. If an unexpected event throws us into a pit of despair and panic, welcome to the control disorder club. If we’re anxious, worried, afraid or frustrated about any and all aspects of life, a control disorder seeped into our minds and took over at some point. These disorders manifest themselves in a variety of ways, but their root remains the same.
The irony of control disorders is thick.

We’re created beings; thus, we are completely dependent on our Creator. We can’t give ourselves life any more than we can erase eternity. We exist by a means completely outside ourselves, and without that Source, we’d cease to exist.

Hence the irony—that which we think we control really controls us. Attempting to make our life boxes perfectly harmonious leaves that pursuit controlling us.

Because we’re created, we were never meant to be in control. Creatures don’t exercise control; the Creator does. Control disorders distract us from our Creator. They warp our minds into thinking we’re the ones in control or that we can, in fact, control our little worlds.

Ants never control their farms. Sure, they dig their little tunnels and maneuver grains of sand where they want them, but never are they immune from their owner shaking things up a bit or a sand tunnel collapsing.

People are slightly more sophisticated than ants, though not necessarily for our benefit in the control disorder department. If ants get hit with the unexpected, they simply regroup and begin again. If the unexpected afflicts us, however, we freak out and internalize the issue of control.

With us, any and all control we exercise only worsens our control disorders. The more life goes according to plan, the bigger our heads get to thinking it’s to our credit. When the unexpected hits, we’re quick to blame, internalize, and get to work reestablishing order so still feel in control.

Scripture praises self-control as a spiritual discipline, but not as a theological doctrine. Only God, our Creator and Sustainer, exercises sovereign control. Forfeiting that truth in exchange for delusional control disorders renders us frozen instruments in His kingdom.

2 Corinthians 5:14-15 pierces straight to our hearts with this issue:
For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. 

When we submit to God’s control, we recognize that 1) He’s the only One actually in control, and 2) He’s far better at sovereignty than we ever could be! Submitting, therefore, is surrendering to Him in light of His captivating Gospel.

God’s control sovereignly ordains us to unite with Him through the sacrifice of His Son. That’s something we could never accomplish with our “control” mechanisms. Stuck in depravity, we have no chance of redemption left to ourselves because fallen creatures can’t produce perfect solutions. Only the Perfect can orchestrate and fulfill such a call, which is precisely what He did.

The Gospel infiltrates our daily lives in numerous ways, including the dismantling of our control disorders. Only when we humble ourselves to God’s sovereign control do we have any hope of cure. Only in the Gospel do we live for Him who died and rose again on our behalf. When Christ is the center of our attention we no longer want to have control! The desire to control melts away and is replaced with a longing for Him to have His perfect way with every aspect and detail of our lives.
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Let the Gospel cure your control disorder by soaking in a good dose of it every day. Let the sovereign Master take the reins and accomplish His perfect purpose in and through your life! The road may not be easy or go according to your plan, but that’s not the point. He is.