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