Out of Control

What is it that you really control? Think about it. But before you let your list get too long, I challenge you to look deeply and with painful honesty. Perhaps ask the question this way, “what is there in your life that cannot be lost?” If it can be lost, do you really control it?

As humans we work very hard to establish a wall of security about ourselves. We deceive ourselves into thinking that we can control the things that happen in our lives.  If we plan hard enough and work hard enough then we can determine our own destiny.

This tendency shows itself over and over again. As nations, we build huge militaries to keep others from enforcing their will on us. Money is valuable to us because it provides an avenue of control. With it we do as we wish. We use it to build a fence to protect us from economic insecurity. But neither military or money provide any real guarantees. Good people sometimes loose everything.

Although we might like to think differently, relationships are not blessed with complete surety either. Death is promised to all relationships and its timing is beyond our choosing. As parents we do our best, but sometimes children go wayward. No matter what we want to believe, marriages sometimes inexplicably end.

I believe that one of the greatest terrors we humans share is the fear of loss of control. Those of us from America are particularly afraid because we actually have known a great deal of sovereignty. Since the founding of the nation, no foreign power has ever invaded. What is the American dream except the belief that if you make the right decisions and have enough discipline then you can order your own life? I am not trying to devalue this idea, only to point out that in the history of humanity self-governance and freedom are very rare.

Take my neighbors here in Bulgaria for an example. They have a much different view of control. Their government is not big and powerful. In fact, throughout almost all of their history someone else ruled them. Someone else made the laws and told them what they could and couldn’t do, where they could and couldn’t live, who would live and who would die. Even now as a democracy the problem continues. Bulgarians are very intelligent and well educated. But a student here can work very hard in university, make the best grades, and still have little opportunity to find a good job here. Hard work and determination are just not guarantees. Life isn’t fair.

So here is the question: does our fear of losing control actually control us? Does the fear of loss keep you from being who you should be? Are you afraid to risk pursuing a more meaningful life because you might loose your security? Are you content to be a bystander because stepping out of line and joining the race might mean you surrender your self-rule?

For followers of Christ this desire to control our own destinies has one big problem: it is the antithesis of faith. Over and over the biblical story is one of calling people away from safe and controlled lives. Faith is the surrendering of ourselves, our resources, our relationships to one who created all. Christ provides the perfect example.

Philippians 2
6 Who, being in very nature God, 

  did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 

7 rather, he made himself nothing 

  by taking the very nature of a servant, 

  being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, 
 
  he humbled himself 

  by becoming obedient to death— 
     
  even death on a cross!

Perhaps true freedom is not found by clutching to the facade of control, but by actually letting go.


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