Let’s start with the bad news — I’ve come to a sobering conclusion:

“I’m addicted to control! I’m an expert manipulator!” Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) requires recovering addicts to corporately confess their addiction by stating, “We admit we are powerless over alcohol—that our lives have become unmanageable.” Now for my confession: “I admit that I am powerless to overcome my addiction to control and manipulation.” Confession can be ugly!  Yet to admit and embrace who we are is to carry our brokenness into the healing presence of a Loving Father.

Last month I was riding in a car with my dear friends Dass Supperamaniam and Jason Eheler in Winnipeg, Canada. After a number of weeks in North America Dass was longing for some good spicy Indian food; so when Jason commented that time was too limited for a visit to the Indian restaurant Dass playfully pretended to have a tantrum in the back of the car, crying like a baby and stamping his feet. My jovial comment to Jason was, “Do you ever feel like you’re being manipulated…?” Jason cracked a broad smile and responded, “I’ve got four kids—all the time!”[1]

This was a “lights-on moment” for me. From the cradle to the grave we are subtly yet consistently endeavouring to orchestrate the environment and people around us to fit into the grand scheme of what we believe to be best, often but not exclusively with selfish intent. I realise that I do it all the time! It’s become second nature, indeed so familiar that I’m not even aware that I’m doing it! I want to control how I feel, my health, my today, my tomorrow, my next year and next decade, my financial wellbeing, my wife, my kids, my friends, my associates, indeed all the people I interact with, that they would agree with my perception of what is best. I don’t delegate because I’m convinced I can do it better. Please don’t be offended, I even do it in my relationship with God — if He’d only come to His senses, then He would agree with me too!

The core issue is this: All orphan-heartedness is about trying to control the world around and within us, because we don’t trust Father. We don’t trust Him to care of us or to have our very best in mind. So I need to take control, I need to take things into my own hands and make them happen because if I’m honest I don’t really believe that Father wants to or will take care of me.

It’s a problem that predates the Garden of Eden. In the Garden the man and the woman believed the serpent’s lie that God was holding out on them, ultimately trying to take control of their own destiny. To become like God was to become God unto themselves, because they believed He wasn’t there for them. But our addiction to control is even more ancient than the Garden, finding its roots in the heart of the liar, the heart of Lucifer, “I will ascend to heaven above the stars of God; I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High’ Isaiah 14:12f. I told you confession was ugly! But to find the road to freedom is to confess and embrace the reality that our addiction to control and manipulation is rooted in the brokenness of the garden and the warped heart of Lucifer. Only then are we able to bring ourselves and our addiction into the healing presence of a Loving Saviour and a Loving Father.

To encourage you along the path — control is largely illusion anyway. The Illusion of Control is the overriding theme of one of my favourite movies: Instinct, with Sir Anthony Hopkins and Cuba Golding Junior. To be suddenly aware of how little control we actually have can be a rude awakening; losing control of one’s faculties through old-age or illness, losing a loved one as the innocent victim of a car crash, losing all that you own and have worked for due to another’s criminal activity. Ultimately all of us will die, the definitive loss of control. Whatever control we think that we have is temporary, much more limited than we imagine and finally fiction. All of our efforts are similar to a deaf and blind Air Traffic Controller trying to coordinate the crowded air space above London’s Heathrow Airport — futility.

So what about the good news…? The good news is not just good it’s awesome — You don’t have to do it! You don’t have to play the control and manipulation game! You can opt out because there’s a much better way and it’s life-giving instead of life-draining! Total assurance and security are fully available, but are achieved not by taking but by relinquishing control. Freedom is trusting our care and destiny into the hands of One utterly loving and all knowing, conceding control in favour of surrender. Paradoxically, to lose is to win.

It’s not ‘blind’ faith. No-one in their right mind would trust their life to a complete stranger. Father desires to unfold the substance of His love and life within us to such depth and reality that the eyes and ears of our hearts would “see” with crystal clear 20-20 clarity His true nature and concrete reliability. His love transcends merely knowing, it releases increasingly concrete revelational conviction. Control is by nature exhausting because we were created for a place of transcendent rest, a place of unearthly trust which rises far above the everyday furore, fully available to every one of us if we will cede control and dive into the arms of a Loving Father.

Having confessed addiction, the second and third steps of AA’s 12-step program state; “2. We believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. 3. We make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him.”  If we will let go of our insane illusion of control and turn to Him there is a place of unearthly trust and rest available in the Father’s love that takes us beyond the cognitive, the logical and even the experiential — Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed. This is a place where we simply know that we know that we know that He is completely trustworthy, completely loving, and that He always has our best in mind, regardless of outward circumstances. Perhaps best of all, He’ll meet us as we understand Him today and then take us into tomorrow.

If you too can confess your addiction then there’s no condemnation. The key is not denial, on the contrary it’s to admit your own powerlessness to change and to embrace who you are, bringing you and your brokenness into the healing presence of a Loving Father through a Loving Saviour — He already knows exactly who we are and is longing to graciously express His compassion, to impart His life and freedom. Sit back, relax, enjoy the journey, let Him love your hands off the steering wheel and enter into His rest.

[1] Used with permission from Dass & Jason

Have we corrupted the Gospel by changing it from radical Good News into emasculated Good Advice? [1] If he were alive on the earth today, would the apostle Paul be penning you and I a letter with the explicit intent of shocking us back into Freedom?

As Jesus bears his heart to Father in Gethsemane (Jn 17), He makes three outstanding requests for us that are irrevocably interconnected; 1. ‘That we may have the full measure of His joy within us’ (Wow!) 2. ‘That the love Father has for Him might be in us’ (Double Wow!) 3. ‘That He [Jesus] would be formed in us.’ (Simplicity!). The person of Christ is manifested within us as the fullness of the Father’s love for His Son is released within our hearts — naturally accompanied by the full measure of the Son’s joy! This is Christlikeness. The well is the love Father has for Jesus, generously available to each one of us.

Have we gone from being the lost son starving in a distant land, utterly convinced of our need of Grace, evolving instead into the self-congratulating older brother; striving in the field, never disobeying a command? Christianity with an exaggerated emphasis on obedience, the commandment and Lordship is Christianity without a revelation of the Father. His goal is our hearts in union and harmony with his, not domination. In the context of the church this older ‘son’ can appear to model Christian perfection; attending all available services and midweek events, being first to volunteer at every given opportunity, desperate to earn approval from God, man and self. Yet within is either growing dryness and despair, or deep-seated dissatisfaction and frustration with this Christian life. The root of the problem is that this isn’t the Christian life!

In Hugh Grant’s movie Music and Lyrics is a song entitled: All I want to do it find a way back into love… The Self-righteous Christian Life is a loveless marriage of either rigid duty or despair. How do I know? I’ve proudly displayed my self-righteousness and feasted on its bankruptcy, indeed I still pop-in to visit from time to time! I go from leaning into the One who is the very source of all life to trying to attain my goals through human effort — a mouthful of dry sand. Father wants to help us continually find the way back into the simplicity and reality of His love. In this place, even in the midst of failure or weariness, we discover what it means to be cherished by Father the way that He loves Jesus — then, Christ’s nature is birthed in the womb of our hearts and full joy begins to manifest from within. This is the Christian life, an ancient mystery unveiled, a journey into realised Trinitarian love Divine.

[1] NT Wright, Simply Good News

For many years I mistook the force of my personality, my natural ability to influence people, situations and decisions, for the unction of the Holy Spirit. If I perceived something to be right or true, or if it was in my view an issue of God’s will, then I mistakenly believed I should bring to bear the driving force of my soul (mind, will & emotions) behind the matter until truth was acknowledged or God’s will realised — bulldozer-fashion if necessary. My erroneous behaviour stole life from my family, my friends, my compatriots, and even my own heart. The reality is that Father doesn’t need my help; it’s His work; I’m just along for the ride — Beauty from Ashes…

Over the past three to four years, with gentle violence, Father has been confronting the force of my personality with the force of His. The final score was always inevitable, the fallout not pretty. Paul’s Damascus Road confrontation preceded a three-year stint in Arabia — wilderness, a dry place, a place of death; my experience has not been dissimilar. Yet in this place my heart is meeting the One who turns the shifting sands into pools of living water; in the context of our inner journey soulish strength is ultimately weakness, spiritual weakness is the key to truly living — sonship. The first man Adam (son) became a living soul, the second Adam (Son) a life-giving spirit… ‘Father deliver me into this place.’

To feed and to lead others from the soul is to feed them from our own flesh; I have done this. In the grave of my own brokenness the love of Papa is transforming the perishableinto the imperishable, the dishonourable into the glorious, weaknesses into strength, and ultimately the natural into the spiritual. This is not only His desire but His joy! He delights to create beauty out of our ashes.

In closing this portion, I present to you unfolding life, friendship, marriage and ministry, a dwelling place accessible to all who will adventure from and embrace the place of vulnerability. This joyous, peace-imbibed, hill-singing, tree-clapping life is the way of sons; whether on the mountaintops, down in the grave or anywhere between the two. For hearts to dwell in this reality is not dependent on outward circumstances but the inward continual manifestation of the Father’s love within a vulnerable heart:-

Is. 55:10-12 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”

It’s what He is growing, speaking and accomplishing, not what I can say, implement or achieve according to my strength or ability, even in the transformation of my very self. I’d love to tell you I fully own but at the very least I know that I am seeing, the adventure continues…

‘When Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, he summarised in these gestures his own life. Jesus is chosen from all eternity, blessed at his baptism in the Jordan River, broken on the cross, and given as bread to the world.  Being chosen, blessed, broken, and given is the sacred journey of the Son of God, Jesus the Christ. When we take bread, bless it, break it, and give it with the words “This is the Body of Christ,” we express our commitment to make our lives conform to the life of Christ.  We too want to live as people chosen, blessed, and broken, and thus become food for the world.’ Bread for the Journey, Henri Nouwen.

If I’d read the passage quoted above at the time of our last publication, I would not have understood it as I do today, just six short months later. It would also be fair to say that tomorrow I will not understand it as I do today—the journey is ongoing. Different seasons of my life can be characterised by different emphases — in one season discovering more of my ‘chosenness’, in another more of ‘becoming food for the world’, but this season is defined by increasing degrees of brokenness and is deeply personal.

In the past my perception of brokenness has been that it is something to ‘get over’, something to be ‘dealt with’, something to be politely ashamed of, something that should be spoken of in the past tense as soon as is practically possible. Today I’m growing increasingly comfortable with my inadequacies, not yet totally comfortable, but increasingly comfortable with co-habitation — embracing my broken condition and entering in my weakness into the presence of Love (not ‘bringing’ my brokenness with me because my brokenness is me — the difference is subtle but significant as the former is still to hold brokenness at arm’s length). What I discover there is not judgment, disdain, or distance but Understanding, Compassion and Intimacy, Love’s unconditional embrace — my brokenness is me, my shortcomings are mine, and truly I am Loved for who I am right now. I’ve known this theologically for as long as I can remember, but now my heart is finally seeing, experiencing, and owning, like the first promising rays of sunlight on the dawn of a new day. Grace is deeply precious in this place. In my Christian(?) ‘I’ve got it altogetherness,’ grace is a nice concept, an increasingly distant memory; but in brokenness it is ever-present life and breath, a place of rest and self-acceptance where I can finally be me without shame or excuse… Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. (Psalm 139:12)