The Truth about Control

As a young mom, I had such great hopes for my kids. I wanted them to follow the Lord and love his Word. I wanted them to grow up to be wise, kind, and good. I had a happy ending for my family worked out in my head, and I felt like it was all up to me to make that happen. 

I never would have called myself a Control Girl back then, though all of the signs were there. The slightest interruption made me angry and agitated. The smallest threat to my kids sent me into a tailspin of irrational anxiety. I responded to life’s foreboding details with exhausting perfectionism. Details like: 

My toddler wasn’t saying words yet.
My preschooler lied to me. 
A child in our community drowned. 
My older kids blatantly disobeyed.

I thought of myself as an invested, persistent, responsible mom. But by trying to play God and control the outcomes, I became angry, anxious, fearful, and perfectionistic. The more controlling I got, the more miserable we all became—myself included. 

My whole family remembers the day I asked the boys to clean up their LEGOs before company arrived. When I walked downstairs an hour later and discovered LEGO chaos, the fuse of my anger was lit. They don’t listen to you! I thought. What’s going to happen if they don’t learn to obey? You’ve got to do something about this right now! So I lifted my arm to their pride-and-joy LEGO tower—which had taken months to build—and in a moment of rage, I smashed it. 

The boys, hearing LEGOs shatter, came running with looks of horror and dismay that I still can’t unsee. My heart instantly flooded with regret, and as they cried, “Oh noooo,” I begged them to forgive me. What was wrong with me? What sort of mother would do such a thing? It’s one of those ugly Control Girl moments I wish I could forget. 

Control’s Burden

Sometimes we say God’s in control but act like we are. We claim God is powerful and able, yet we heap up the burden of control onto our own shoulders and stagger under its weight. Ironically, when we try to control what isn’t ours to manage, we often lose control over the one person that is: ourselves. 

I see this same pattern in the story of Sarah, the mother of God’s people. Abraham and Sarah initially responded to God’s promise to turn their family of two into a great nation with remarkable faith. Their whole lives became shaped by God’s promises as they left everything and walked a thousand miles into the unknown. No doubt Sarah—who had already endured the sorrow of infertility[1]—was filled with wonder and joy at God’s promise to fill her brittle branch on the family tree with more fruit than she could count. 

I imagine her thinking, “This is going to be great! I’ll probably get pregnant on the way, and then Abram will build us a house in the promised land, and we’ll start filling it with kids . . . ” But a decade later, when she’s still a childless woman living in a tent, Sarah decides to take matters into her own hands.[2] 

Stapling up Fruit

If we consider Sarah’s story in the context of the gospel, God wasn’t just promising a baby to a couple; he was promising a Savior to the world. And don’t you think it’s interesting that God chooses a brittle branch—not a fruitful one—to produce this promised offspring? Knowing how we gravitate to self-reliance, God makes double sure that we understand: self-salvation is impossible. We can’t produce spiritual life or the spiritual fruit that follows any more than Sarah could produce a baby—yet we’re about to see her try. 

Back in Genesis 12, God made promises, saying, “I will, I will, I will . . . ” But in Genesis 16, Sarah’s first recorded words are, “Perhaps I can . . . ” (Genesis 16:2, CSB). When Sarah gives her servant Hagar to Abraham, she’s turning away from faith and turning toward self-effort. It’s as if she’s trying to staple up fruit on the family tree, rather than waiting on God to produce it. This story illustrates what the Bible proclaims: Faith ends where self-reliance begins. And self-reliance begins where faith ends. 

The Progression of Control

As the story unfolds in Genesis 16, things seesaw in a direction Sarah wasn’t expecting. Rather than being honored, the newly pregnant Hagar treats her with contempt, and when Sarah brings her humiliation to Abraham, he passively deflects. So Sarah directs her wounded, pent-up rage toward Hagar, who has no defense. It’s an ugly story where everyone loses, including Sarah—who has lost control of herself. 

Have you noticed this progression of control in your own life? Does your anger, fear, anxiety, or perfectionism stem from your desire for control? Have you, too, been trying to staple up fruit that only God can produce? 

By the end of Genesis 16, there is a baby, but he is not the child of promise. Galatians tells us that Hagar’s baby represents what we can do without God.[3] But God wants so much more for us than the fruit of our own self-reliance. Sisters, we Christian moms can produce some of the godliest looking families—and we can do so without God’s help. But only God can make true and lasting spiritual fruit grow. He invites us to depend on him. 

The One Who Produces Fruit

That day I sat on the floor surrounded by shattered LEGOs, my heart’s first response was telling. Rather than humbly repenting before the Lord of my sinful anger, I started rehearsing how I could fix this. You’ve got to turn this around, Shannon! From now on, you’re going to be the kindest, most patient mom to ever live . . . 

After demonstrating control’s ugly progression, was more white-knuckled control really the answer? Without God’s help, I couldn’t even control myself, let alone produce the far-reaching outcomes I longed for. As I look back on almost three decades of parenting, I am more convinced than ever that I cannot produce spiritual fruitfulness any more than Sarah could produce the child of promise. But I’m equally convinced that God can.

Sister, God can cause any dead thing in your life to burst into bloom just as assuredly as he brought Sarah’s womb to life at age eighty-nine. He can bring your child to saving faith. He can convict your daughter of her sin or help your son develop godly character. And he can turn you from an angry, anxious, perfectionistic mom into a self-controlled woman of God. You can’t, but God can—and when fruit appears, he gets the glory. 

If you long for fruitfulness, control isn’t the answer. Dependence on God is. Whether you’re fretting over the future, frustrated by your own sin, or worrying where someone else’s shortcomings might lead, God invites you to live like it’s true that he can bring brittle branches into bloom.  

[1] Genesis 11:30

[2] Genesis 16:3

[3] Galatians 4:23