When I was a child, I learned of a true story of a married couple fighting about
. . . wait for it…
whether the toilet paper roll should go on THIS way
or THAT way.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what they were fighting about had nothing to do with toilet paper.
They were fighting about control.
Unfortunately, even WHAT they had control over, at this level of debasement, ceased to have meaning. They just both needed THEIR WAY. It sounds a bit like hell on earth, and in fact, it is.
A fictional demon character states his goal of hell on earth this way: “All the healthy . . . activities . . . which we want [them] to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return. ..”
CS Lewis in Screwtape Letters
As a young adult, I had seen many relationships that ended up this way.
I wanted to learn how to have healthy relationships, so I prayed I would be transformed. I asked God to make me a perfect person who could find a perfect spouse and we could live happily ever after. But in God’s frequent way, He did offer one key
not in a flash of deep, fervent prayer, but by using real life to sanctify me.
This path was a more painful route.
Here’s what happened.
I was journaling one day, and in that season, I tended to journal about my problems to process them. I felt God asking me to journal for another 10 minutes after I would have normally finished journaling. And God asked me to do this every time I journaled that season. At first, I didn’t know why I was doing this, but I obeyed. And very soon, a painful pattern emerged.
I had many unrelated problems that I was journaling about, but each situation had the same root that caused frustration, anger, or irritation.
Control.
Everything I was upset about ultimately boiled down to “How can I get my way?”
Ouch.
Now, I am from a good, Matriarchal Italian family, and let’s say that I knew how to choose my friends and boyfriends so that I could get my way. For example, when I was a child, my dad, in despair over his inability to live harmoniously with my mom, once asked for advice. “How do you and your friend Amy get along so well?” he asked. I effused the wisdom I had intuitively gleaned from 10 years of watching my female relatives and responded with this sage advice: “Sometimes, I let us do what Amy wants.”
I liked having my way all the time.
Here’s the kicker – In that season as a young adult after examining my journaling, I realized that I had to CHOOSE to give up a good thing for me – getting my way almost all the time – for a BETTER thing – having a CHANCE at having a healthy marriage.
And I must stress that it was NOT EASY for me to not have my way all the time.
More often than I’d like to admit, it’s still not easy to lay down my way when Jesus speaks softly to me, directing me and showing me a better path. However, I want to trust Jesus more fully because He longs for me to soar into my fullest potential.
And somehow, this continues to be the place where, against all expectations, I flourish.
Our human desire for power is never to be underestimated. Our compulsive desire for control is never to be swept under the rug. Our fleshly desire for influence, ascendency, and dominion should never be ignored. If you don’t know that you hold a sword in your hands, you will wound someone. And the one who becomes wounded may be you.
Christine Westhoff in Reframing the Prophetic
God, help us to have the wisdom to exchange what we cling to for something better, the gifts You long to give. Help us to unclench our hands long enough to receive Your gifts.
You’ve observed . . . when people get a little power how quickly it goes to their heads. It’s not going to be that way with you.
Jesus Christ (the guy almost 1/3 of the world claims to follow) in The Message
Restoring Life 