It’s Not About Control

In a commentary this week titled “For Christians, It’s Usually About Control and It Shouldn’t Be,” Tom Ehrich eloquently and thoughtfully said:

“I yearn for the day when we Christians stop fighting about control issues, and start doing what Jesus called us to do. We are so concerned about controlling how people behave that we forget to love them as they are. We are so concerned about doctrinal cleansing, ethical cleansing and political cleansing that we fail to see the logs in our own eyes, and even more, we fail to give what God gives, namely mercy. We are so concerned about whom to keep out that we fail to let hope and forgiveness in.

“In our concern for fiscal tidiness, denominational victory, ordination privileges and liturgical correctness, we wear ourselves out and have too little energy for serving. In our sniping and snapping, we shred the bonds of trust. In our warring and wariness, we tend to see categories, not persons; we see threats, not needs; we wonder how harshly to judge, not how lavishly to love. In our zeal for safety and comfort, we refuse to die to self.

“We need to get out of our heads, out of our safe places, out of our concern for winning, out of our propriety and self-righteousness, and we need to hear a fellow pilgrim say, I once was lost, but now am found, and what we do here makes all the difference in the world.

“I yearn for the day when we care more about making that difference than about getting our way. More about listening than speaking. More about being one than being right.”