The Illusion of Control
You think you have control. You look around and take stock of your life, and, if it’s a good day, you high-five yourself and feel some measure of peace at how well you’re doing with…stuff. And also things. “My stuff and also my things are right on track!” you say to yourself, proud and pleased. If it’s a bad day, you beat yourself up and you tell yourself to get your act together, and to take control of your life.
But…unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, because we would all be awful at it), you don’t have control. Not really. At most, you have control over yourself and your choices and…even that, let’s face it, isn’t complete control.
Can you safeguard your breath, in the night while you sleep,
keep your heart beating steady and sure?
Control only belongs to God, and when people try to wrestle that away from him, it…doesn’t go great. Most of the time, we think other people are in control, and so we spend our time trying to wrestle control from each other. It…also doesn’t go great.
Controlling
Let’s say you try to control something in a relationship. You want someone to do something – agree with you, behave in a certain way, whatever. So…you apply leverage. You tell yourself that you’re merely being convincing, but it includes some flavor of the following:
- Do what I want or I won’t give you a thing. (time, attention, love, sex, money, validation…)
- I will give you a thing (same list as above, sometimes with the inclusion of actual concrete things) only because I expect you’ll do what I want later. If you don’t, I will punish you in some way and I will be bitter about having given you that thing.
- I’m going to lie a little bit about what I want so that you’ll be tricked into doing it.
- Do what I want, or I’m going to be really depressed and that will be your fault and you should definitely feel guilty.
- Do what I want, or I will hurt you (physically or emotionally).
All of these are an attempt to force someone into doing what you want. It’s using their concept of safety against them as the leverage – safety in the existence and certainty and health of your relationship, usually. Sometimes financial safety, since this happens in organizations all the time. Sometimes, in extreme cases, physical safety, although those are much easier to see as obviously bad.
You’re trying to control an outcome that you think is important by forcing the other person to make the choice you want them to make. It might even be an outcome that’s ultimately good for them – but you’re forcing the choice to occur when you want, on your terms, and you’re threatening to do damage to something important to the other person if they don’t comply.
Offering and Asking
Alternately, you can just…be. You can give, and support, whatever you can give or support without doing damage to yourself. You can offer, with a scary amount of vulnerability. You can ask for what you want, what you need, and aim for your relationships to be based on partnership and choice.
- I need or want a thing (again, same list as above). Will you give me that thing?
- …that’s it.
This, and all of the variety it can have between two people, is completely terrifying if you’re willing to accept any answer and work through whatever relationship changes might result. You’re still asking the other person to make a choice, but you would genuinely accept yes, no, or I’m not ready to make that choice as a response. It’s still a choice, yes, but the point is that you’re asking for what you need without trying to control their answer. You’re offering them the opportunity to freely give you what you need, and you’re also accepting that maybe they can’t or won’t.
Truly good things are freely given with no strings attached.
Oh Hi God!
God, with his limitless resources and grace, freely gives, and freely gives, and freely gives. Reality, beautiful and bold and powerful and frightening – the Grand Canyon, the stars and the moon, the oceans, lavishly beautiful sunrises and sunsets. People – who love, and hate, and make music. You, yourself – your dreams and hopes and purpose, your emotions and your capacity to love. His son, to heal the deep hurt of a lost world.
He gives all of this without asking for a thing in return, a single ounce of payback. Just…to accept, and to know Him. And He will still give even if you say no.
God Plan is Best Plan
Our relationship with God should always serve as a model for our relationships with people. We should all try to love this way. But it’s extremely hard. Rejection sucks – being told that what you want or need is stupid. Finding out that you can’t have what you need sucks. Feeling unimportant and unwanted in a relationship also sucks, a lot. If you’re told that you can’t have what you need often enough, sometimes you have to determine if the relationship should continue (not as a threat, and not as a weapon, just…fact), and that…well, it sucks.
Every time you offer or ask without hidden strings or controls, you risk any and all of these. But when you work at building relationships this way, you gain peace – because you know that if the other person gives you what you need, they’re doing it without doing damage to themselves and because that’s what they truly want to do. They’re doing it because being in a relationship with you brings them joy. You begin to see that their very existence in the relationship is the only assurance you need that they want to be there, because choice, and you don’t need other proof.
This is what love is, and this is what relationships are, and we learn that by how God behaves in His relationships with us. People freely choosing to love and care for one another is beautiful. The other way – grabbing for control, forcing hard choices – is just an illusion, and will not help any of us.