At the time of writing this, it’s Sunday afternoon, the day before the next post goes out at 7 A.M. MT. I have a whole different article queued up and ready to go, with all the finishing touches and tweaks I made during my review.
But that’s not the piece you’re reading this week.
I don’t know if that piece will ever go out in its current form.
You see, the whole essay centered around the idea of control. It’s something I deeply struggle with, and I have even been diagnosed with acute OCD. Needing everything in its place and in the right slot of the routine is really important to me, so I wanted to address the subject of control in a way that showed how we mistake it for faithfulness.
However, the way I wrote it was a means of controlling the narrative around my failings and shortcomings. I hedged too much. Quite frankly, I made it too safe.
It’s easy to confront the Jesus jukes and the God-speak that we use when things aren’t going right. The “God’s got a plan” and false humility cards we play to puff our chests through the breakups, losses, and times when things just don’t go right are often our default, and I know the God-speak responses as well as anyone.
But what if the real control in the depths of my soul isn’t my desire to control others, but really my desire to control how God moves?
That’s not as easy to address. It’s not as easy to admit. I cringe at the thought that this is what I actually struggle with, since I know all too well that I would make a terrible god. And yet, I use my prayers to convince God to do things my way, preferring the easy route with the least pain to what God’s already planned.
So, as I approached this idea of controlling God, I’m taken immediately to the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42:
While they were traveling, he entered a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who also sat at the Lord’s feet and was listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, and she came up and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? So tell her to give me a hand.” The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Now, the main way you and I have heard this explained (maybe even explained it this way ourselves when talking to a youth group) is somewhere along the lines of ordering your right priorities in the right way. That’s all well and good, because there’s something to learn from these verses about how we stack up our lives, but that’s not the point at all. One commentary says “the interests of this brief narrative unit lie elsewhere. Luke’s narration is manifestly concerned with the motif of hospitality.”1
Hospitality. We can show it in many different ways, from welcoming people into our homes and cooking for them to showing kindness to those who may not deserve it. To embody hospitality requires someone to relinquish some sort of right or privilege in favor of another person’s comfort or preference.
Put another way, it means giving up total control so that others may have a say in the matter. You don’t run the show, and even more so when Jesus shows up at your front door.
We see the difference in the two women almost immediately. The same commentary says, “Mary is depicted as one who has begun the journey of discipleship by acknowledging through her posture her submissiveness to Jesus and by ‘listening’ to his word. Martha’s ‘doing,’ on the other hand, is censured, rooted as it is in her anxiety as a host rather than in dispositions transformed by an encounter with the word.”2
So when the two butt heads, or rather, when Martha boldly and bluntly makes her opinion known about her sister, you can easily feel the tension between approaches. Martha feels like Mary is lazy; Mary feels like Martha is high-strung, or at least can surmise that from the way Jesus responds.
And oh how he responds. You can almost feel the disarming tone as you read his words, as he comforts Martha’s anxiety while correcting her at the same time. He doesn’t say serving is wrong, or the wrong thing to do in this moment; he confronts her anxiety and fretting.
So serving isn’t wrong; it’s serving with the wrong heart posture. Making things happen isn’t wrong; it’s doing so with the wrong motivation. Colloquially speaking, driving a car with the wrong fuel in the tank will always lead you to disaster.
Schreiner makes an important observation: “Serving is good and necessary, but Martha has lost the truth that all service must flow out of one’s relationship with the Lord, that all service must be rooted in the joy of knowing God as one’s treasure and one’s pleasure.”3
When we “listen” and submit, we say with our hearts, minds, and lives that we don’t have the full picture. That there’s something we’re missing that’s necessary for us to comprehend what God is doing and how we fit into His plan.
When we “do” and try to strong-arm others, including God, into making things happen according to our plan, we say with our hearts, minds, and lives that others don’t have the full picture as we do. That our page is the right page, and our idea of how things operate is the only way.
Do you see how terrible a mode of operation it is to try and take the reins from God, especially when we see it in light of this passage?
Where my control manifests most is in the way my personality employs service. I am naturally inclined to hop in to help people, to stop what I’m doing and give up my preferences. I raise my hand and volunteer to do anything and everything I can.
But not always in a noble, humble way.
I end up inadvertently keeping a ledger. “I did this for you, so you owe me.” I want people to do things for me in response, so I have to get the first word in by making the first move.
Schreiner’s concluding words in response to the passage perfectly sum up where the idol of control takes me:
Ironically, serving others can become a means by which we exercise our selfish will. We can validate our existence and feel better about ourselves because of how much we do for the sake of others. In other words, our service can cease to be nurtured by a relationship with God, who is the “fountain of living waters” (Jer. 2:13). We can become so distracted with what we do that we forget who we are and neglect our relationship with the living God!4
Wherever this lands for you, I hope you ask yourself the question: am I trying in any way to control others? Or maybe even God?
I hope this also serves as a reminder that people aren’t pawns in a chess game. You don’t have to force people to do things for you; you can just ask them and be honest if you need help.
I’m a work in progress when it comes to giving up control. I know that much of how sin rears its ugly head in my life is through my need and desire to manipulate circumstances and situations.
And it’s in that acknowledgment that I’m able to examine my thoughts and actions and engage in surrender. I’m able to take it to God and say, “I want to make things happen my way, but I know that’s not right and I don’t know how to not do this. So God, this is yours.”
The only thing you can truly control is how you respond: to God, to others, to what’s going on right in front of you. And how much better is it to respond the way Mary did, with submission, receiving, and focus, than the way Martha did, with anxiety, manipulation, and worry.
I hope this hit home for you as much as it did for me while I wrote it. If you found any wisdom, insight, or comfort here, please consider subscribing to get more Bible-centered content that touches on real things sent to your email inbox each Monday.
Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 433.
Green, The Gospel of Luke, 434.
Thomas R. Schreiner, “Luke,” in Matthew–Luke, ed. Iain M. Duguid, James M. Hamilton Jr., and Jay Sklar, vol. VIII, ESV Expository Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 892.
Schreiner, “Luke,” 892.