Losing Control (fourteenth in a series)

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Claudia Dickson Greggs

God does not ask you to give the perfect surrender in your strength, or by the power of your will; God is willing to work it in you… (Andrew Murray)

It is not unusual for us to struggle over losing control when it comes to our children and other people who are important to us. Sometimes what we consider to be loving and well-intentioned actions toward those whom we love are actually controlling ones, which are prideful, idolatrous or unfaithful. I’m sure none of us would ever want to get between God and the people we care about, but it may be that we are doing just that.

For instance, we may tell ourselves that we are concerned on behalf of our children about their manners, dress, or performance in school or in sports, when actually we care more about how the world will perceive us based on their appearance or success.

While there is nothing wrong with wanting our children to dress appropriately, be respectful and polite, and work to their potential, we must ask ourselves whether our concern for them arises more out of our own fallen needs than their well-being. It could be that instead of helping them to grow up and be responsible we are, instead, micro-managing every aspect of their lives in order to assuage our insecurity and feel better about ourselves. If this is the case, then we are motivated by pride, not love. It means we have not surrendered them to Jesus.

Surrendering our children and other loved ones to Jesus is not an abdication of responsibility. Just as with our virtues, which I wrote about last week, it is essential for us to surrender our relationships, especially Continue reading →

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Losing Control (thirteenth in a series)

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Claudia Dickson Greggs

It is not so much a matter of what we are doing, but of what powers we are employing to do it; and who is controlling those powers. (Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life, p. 231)

Revelation, my favorite short story by Flannery O’Connor, is about a stout middle-aged Southern white Christian woman, named Ruby Turpin. Ruby is ever ready to help out a neighbor in need or her church – and to let those around her know about her good deeds. She is quite happy with the respectable life she and her husband, Claud, have established in their small town and with her habit of doing good unto others. She is also in the habit of sizing up the lives of people around her, determining after a long glance or two, whether they are deserving of her time and attention.

Flannery O'Connor

One day as she sits in the waiting room at the office of her husband’s doctor, an ill-mannered young woman silently observes, with increasing hostility, as Ruby prattles on in a self-satisfied way about her life to those in the room who will listen. After some minutes pass by the young woman suddenly explodes in a fit of rage and flings the book she’s been reading at Ruby, hitting her squarely above the eye. Next, lunging for Ruby’s throat, she hisses into Ruby’s ear, “Go back to hell where you came from, you old wart hog.” In that instant Ruby realizes Continue reading →

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Losing Control (twelfth in a series)

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Claudia Dickson Greggs

…I am learning from Jesus to live my life as he would live my life if he were I. I am not necessarily learning to do everything he did, but I am learning how to do everything I do in the manner that he did all that he did. (Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, p. 283).

The purpose of losing control, of becoming yoked to Jesus, of submitting to him as Lord as well as Savior – terms I have used interchangeably in this series – is to become more and more like Jesus. Note that I did not say to become Jesus. Becoming like someone else is what students are doing when they study under a particular teacher. They are not simply learning information about a particular subject, they are also learning from the teacher’s character and habits how to use appropriately, in their future endeavors, the knowledge they are gaining. Knowledge without character formation is useless, even dangerous.

Christ Preaching, REMBRANDT; c. 1652

One could say that the Christian life is a life-long course in “Christ-likeness.” In a sense, we are students and Jesus is our Teacher. Therefore, we are not simply learning about our faith – or about Jesus as an abstract subject – we are learning how to live our life in the way that Jesus would live it if he were in our circumstances, both good and bad, with our unique gifts, talents and opportunities. In becoming like Jesus each of us is becoming our own unique self, as God intended, formed in his image (Genesis 1:27). Sin is responsible for the degree to which we do not currently “resemble” God. But through the Holy Spirit we can regain what was lost to sin; we can come to resemble our Father as we Continue reading →

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