Is God really in control of you?
If God really is in control and can do anything, why doesn't God?
Sometimes the trouble we go through and the atrocities we see, bring an even more frightening question;
What if God IS in control?
When you dig a little deeper into the verses in the Biblical text that are meant to be about God being in control, you discover that none of them are really about God being in control. They are about things like peace and worry and fear and comfort and help and generosity. But none of them says that God makes all the things happen.
Paul wrote to Timothy and said:
"For God gave us a Spirit who produces not timidity, but power, love and self-discipline."
God has given you control over the only thing you can ever really control: yourself.
You are not powerless.
You are not helpless, dependant on rescue, in need of someone bigger and better than you to make all your decisions and tell you what to do, to do it for you in some sovereign move of divinity.
The spirit that you have is powerful and beautiful and capable.
Love is how you keep this power healthy and vibrant, benevolent and true. If you try to harness your own power through any other means, it will twist, and cause you, and most likely others, pain.
When accessed and approached by grace and in love, this power that you have been given is not about controlling others or the world or situations… it's not about making people and things do what you think they should do. It's not about things working out in a way that we think they should be worked out.
It's about taking personal responsibility. It's about showing up and being here. It's about resisting the urge to use a cliché like "God is in control" to pacify fear and ignore pain and put off disappointment.
This cliché is an excuse, a bandaid, a box locked shut so you can't open up and see what's really there. But friend, break that lock, throw open the lid, and take a look around. If God was an entity that could control all of this, God already would have.
There is a better way to be and live, and you are it.
The idea that God has ultimate control is also built on fear. The fear that if left to our own devices, we would find ourselves morally corrupt and incapable of good.
This belief only goes back a few hundred years. It drips with patriarchy, colonialism, abuse, and shame.
You were created with this power for a reason: a spirit that is love, a mind that is sound and capable of making decisions, and a sense of agency over your own self and heart and body.
This control is not like a dogmatic dictatorship… but a kind of awareness that is about paying attention, listening long, digging deeper to find what is truer, and directing your energies towards that.
Marianne Williamson said:
"The power to affect what happens on the earth, from an invisible realm within is the natural right and function of the [child] of God. New frontiers are internal ones, the real stretch is always within us. Instead of expanding our ability or willingness to go out and get anything, we expand our ability to receive what is already here for us."
God is in control in as much as God is the love that beckons you to love your own self and take it seriously enough to enjoy it, live it, and show up to it, in all the wild and holy ways that you can.
God is in control in as much as love wins, always and ever, even when it's flat on its back.
Consider this: God doesn't want to control you or your life. God has built within your being and body the mechanisms for agency and responsibility, to rise in your power, in love and grace, and take control of the only thing you can: yourself. Personal responsibility is not a burden, but a gracious freedom.
From my upcoming series, "Dig A Little Deeper" this week with a subscription in the App.
Written by Liz Milani
Instagram: @thepracticeco
