If you haven't read David Zahl's series, Things You Won't Here Anywhere but at Church, over at Mockingbird, I would highly recommend checking it out. I read his installment from a few weeks ago, "Pray for a Nervous Breakdown," around 4 a.m. one Saturday morning because I was unwillingly awake from pregnancy insomnia and, therefore, googling the best pillows to invest in. Dave starts the article by saying, "Having trouble sleeping? There's a great new pillow you should try."
Coincidence?
I.
Think.
Not.
He goes on to write about the human obsession with controlling our lives, which he relates to French sociologist Jacques Ellul's term technique, defined as "bringing efficiency to everything in life."
"Technique promises to make life more convenient, affordable, and easy, but in practice makes it more exhausting, expensive, and complicated. Each new technique we adopt creates problems for which we instinctually look for another technique to solve, and so on and so on," says Zahl.
The underlying themes of control are clear, or at least they were for me early that morning. For the past few months, my need to manifest control has continued to bubble to the surface - maybe you've even picked up on it in my writing. As this baby's arrival gets closer, I feel the almost constant need to control. Sure, there are the normal things like a nesting list and wrapping up work, but it seems like control (and my lack of it) has it's grips on me everywhere, from prepping for labor, to trying to spend quality time with my two boys, to finding that illusive quality sleep. And the more I seek out mastery over every tiny detail in these last weeks of pregnancy, the more this control seems to allude me.
For example, the week following my early morning read of this article proved to be my family's sixth week dealing with some unknown monster virus that had riddled all of us sick and left my husband with a bout of pneumonia. You can imagine that at 37 weeks pregnant with two toddlers, I handled this new diagnosis really compassionately. (Truly a shining moment in my vocation as a mother and wife.) Doug's liquid lungs rendered all my home nesting projects undone and left me pretty whiny at the end of each day, prepped once again to do some late-night doom scrolling in attempts to convince myself everything was okay.
The scrolling, of course, does nothing to help soothe my anxiety but has definitely increased my Amazon spending and "to do" list as I absorb from every influencer under the sun the top ten things my baby needs in their first few days of life and the ten tricks to have a smooth labor and delivery (remember I've already been through this, twice! What more can I really learn?). This only proves Zahl's point true: the more technique, the more I lean into the illusion of control, the more problems I create.
This seems to be the most common way we deal with control issues: lean in harder to that which you have not mastered, or in the worst cases, shift gears to trying to control something else. And remember to measure, measure, measure your progress along the way. In this way, our fight for control becomes a measurement of control itself: how much are you willing to tighten your grasp on whatever feels like it's bleeding out from under you? The longer you can hold on, the more you prove your value and worth.
My friend Gretchen Ronnevik recently wrote this article for Christianity Today on the very specific illusion of control we confront - especially as Christians - within decisions concerning schooling, and the lie that there is one particular solution for Christian parents:
We subconsciously start to believe that if we parent perfectly, we'll have perfect children—and homeschooling offers a level of control that other education options can't match. But this is a formula devoid of the doctrine of sin and redemption. At its root, it's a sort of salvation through works. It's devastating—and not only for the children who lose their faith, she says.
For the Christian, so much of the struggle for control, technique, or streamlining our lives is at its roots tied to faith. We believe the more control we have and the more we suffer in the name of control, the more righteousness we've gained. Control is our ladder to God, or at least godlikeness. We assume it not only offers us success but safety and protection.
But this facade, as I've hopefully relayed, can only last for so long. This is what both Dave and Gretchen are getting to. We can't rely on control because control is rarely as stable or sturdy as we think it is. Once the cracks start forming in our plans, lists, and accomplishments, and we begin that cycle to try to regain mastery of our situations, the quicker it seems we will work to convince ourselves that this never-ending cycle is not actually bondage, but freedom. And that righteousness must come at a cost, even if that cost never actually delivers us to a solution.
Here is where the second most common reaction comes in, one I also think, at the end of the day, leaves us not too far from where we started. At these moments, sometimes we do hear a contrary message, one that speaks truthfully about the deception innate to control and therefore encourages us to relinquish this search altogether. I guess the best of this messaging includes that we should hand it over to God. But the problem with this approach is that it still operates within the assumption that control is something I have and something I am able to give. That even if control itself is an illusion, I am in control of that illusion! And so the game continues.
If the past nine months have taught me anything, it's that I am entirely incapable of giving up my quest to be in control. I can no quicker hand this task over to God than I can admit that cleaning out our spice cabinet, in reality, will do nothing to prepare me for the arrival of this baby. (Believe you and me, that spice cabinet will be cleaned).
This is getting bleak, you say, and I don't disagree. But if you can, stick with me for one minute longer. This is where I land on the subject right now: control isn't something we give up; instead, control is something that has to be taken away from us and replaced by something else. This is the only way we are truly ever freed from the illusion that the more we plan and choose and strategize and capitalize, the more in charge we are both in the here and now and eternally.
I imagine God doing this to us all the time: prying open dead hands long calcified around our most prized possessions, as he lickety-split snatches away that which we won't give up and replaces it instead with faith in his son. He does the prying, he does the snatching, he does the gifting, and then finally, his hands fold over ours, reviving cold fingers and remaking them so that they can hold onto nothing other than that which he gives.
In a 1517 article that came out today, Erick Sorensen says it this way in relation to how we deal with the uncontrollable reality of life's daily anxieties known as the 'What Ifs':
"If you know you're this valuable to him, you can't help but feel more secure. And the more secure you are, the greater ability you'll have to swat away the "What If's" when they attack."
Your value to God the Father is so great that he would go to great lengths not just to break your illusion of control but to replace it with the reality of the security that comes from faith in his son. I hope this gives you some peace today. I hope during this week when I'm sure for you - just as for me - so much feels out of our control, and so much of the uncontrollable brings with it more problems of heartbreak and suffering and pain that you rest in the promise that God has made it possible for you not to have to clench your fists together so tightly.
We don't have control, nor can we give up the games we play to convince us that we do. We refuse to surrender. Instead, control and its illusion have to be taken from us and replaced by something else. Be assured that in Christ, this has already happened for you, whether you realize it right now or not.
In a few weeks, I'll be up to my knees in newborn diapers, nursing, and keeping toddlers occupied. I will be out of my depths, tired, without the illusion of a list of things to do to distract me. But I will also have some chubby new baby hands that I can hold in my own. I'm hopeful that this will serve as a reminder of how God holds my own incapable hands: how he has gently folded my fingers over the living and secure faith in Christ before wrapping them tightly in his own.
P.S. I did buy some new pillows from, of all places, Costco. And for their $25 price, I can say they have really delivered.
P.P.S. Doug has made a fully recovery and is breathing normally again, thanks be to God.
Outside Ourselves
This week’s Outside Ourselves is with my friend (and boss!), Daniel Emery Price. If you have never heard Dan speak, I do hope you’ll give this episode a listen because there are so many good nuggets about law and gospel, God’s perfect righteousness, and of course, the parables. If you are new to the distinction between law and gospel -or unfamiliar altogether - I’m hopeful this conversation is a great place to start.
A few more recommendations:
I just posted about this on Instagram, but the talks from the recent Mockingbird conference are now up, and this one in particular from Katie Langston may just be the best thing I’ve heard all year. Seriously, if you have 30 minutes, please give it a listen. After listening, I’ve already picked up her book and can’t wait to read it.
1517’s Annual HWSS conference - this year on C.S. Lewis - is happening in a couple weeks! You can (and should!) sign up for the livestream at our website.
Oh - be on the lookout for the next OO episode with C.S. Lewis scholar Dr. Michael Ward. I don’t think you have to be a Lewis nerd to enjoy this one - if you have read the Chronicles of Narnia, I’m hopeful this episode will peak your interest as we’ll be talking about Ward’s work to uncover the hidden meaning behind the Chronicles.