Control Part Two

A while back, I wrote a post on control. That one was about the common belief among Christians that God is in complete control over everything, and how perhaps that belief actually isn’t true or helpful. This time, I want to talk about another belief connected to control - this time, our own.

This belief is, again, fairly simple. It is that one of the best things you can do (after, you know, being saved and all) is giving complete control of your life over to God. How different people describe this is a little different - but there are enough that have come eerily close to describing it as being a puppet (or absolutely literally saying that, thanks dcTalk), that I’ve started to think of it as the puppet belief. The desire to just be a puppet in God’s hands, not making any of your own choices, not following any of your own dreams or desires or anything, not doing anything without God telling you. This is basically how it’s represented.

Hopefully, you can already see the glaring issues with this sort of theology. But if not, then let’s dive into it a bit.

Firstly, let’s look at what the effect of this belief has. It devalues and delegitimises any dreams, desires, opinions, or strengths a person may have; and can render them either rather inactive, or to be somewhat of a pawn or puppet for a controlling religious leader. Alternatively, it can completely shift blame in someone’s mind for their own actions - because this isn’t me wanting to do these things, it’s God! This can be extremely damaging and problematic for both the individual, and those around them.

Secondly, this belief doesn’t really have any biblical basis. The Bible does talk about us following Jesus, or trusting in God, or God having a plan for us, or not trusting entirely in ourselves; but each of those ideas are a far cry from the idea of needing to give God complete control of all we do, and it abandons the ideas of free choice and free will.

And this really feels like the clincher. We are each unique and different, with our own skills, experience, opportunities, ideas; yet this belief would throw much, or all, of that away. And this feels completely counter to how we see both God and Jesus working in the Bible; empowering individuals in their own unique ways, working with who a person is rather than against them. Are we called to follow? Yes - but with who we are, with our own ideas and passions and desires, not abandoning them. After all, these have arguably also been given to us by God; a result of the Spirit within us.

We are not made to be puppets. We are made to be people. Your choices are yours to make. God trusts you with them. Even if you don’t.