Why We Struggle With Control and How to Let Go More Often
I was in my early 20s when I discovered my dilemma with control. While serving in ministry I found myself overcome with frustration that I naively voiced publicly. Thankfully, I don’t remember the entirety of my rant, but I do recollect the grand declaration at the end of it.
“I have a problem with control,” I said boldly for anyone who cared to listen.
Although those words were spoken in haste, they were an accurate depiction of a human struggle, that at some point, is common to us all. But why? Why are we so obsessed with control or the lack of it?
In this I-want-it-my-way-world, we have attempted to manipulate everything. We try to control the totality of our days on earth. Our weddings are planned before we get engaged. We place our names on a daycare waitlist for unborn children. We scope out potential neighborhoods before we can afford it. All the details of our lives must be controlled and fit snugly within the parameters we mapped out when we were twenty-something.
Of course, this is not how life works. The effort we put into controlling circumstances does not correlate with our ability to do so. Most of us continue to try ineffectively. It makes no sense to live this way, but we are lured by a struggle that did not originate with us. The root causes for this age-old issue is seen throughout the pages of Scripture.
