!!!CONTROL!!! FREAKISM . . . HYPER CONTROL VS LETTING GO &
Nov 15, 2014 13:01:35 GMT -6
Pennylemon and dirkgently like this
Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2014 13:01:35 GMT -6
LETTING GO AND LETTING GOD VS HYPER !!!CONTROL!!! FREAKISM
I wrote this off the cuff, just now . . . in response to an online friend in a small private forum. She is fighting cancer and her developmentally diminished physically adult daughter has just had serious surgery to correct a devastating problem. She's having a hard time LETTING GO AND LETTING GOD even though it is absolutely necessary for her well being as well as her daughter's.
= = =
Warning . . . an off-the-cuff spontaneous AiRen CORE DUMP essay on the !!!CONTROL!!! topic . . . follows . . .
I know from hard personal experience that God prying my hyper control freak fingers off of even my own life . . . and certainly the lives of those nearby . . . can be . . . about as traumatic an existential rattling event that one can experience, in some respects. Yet, it seems to be a high priority of The Lord in conforming us to His image.
Yet, it's also freeing, delivering, in the end result . . . even comforting . . .
Yeah, I know . . . if we want something done "RIGHT," we still tend to need to do it ourselves. LOL.
Yet, I've found that HARD LEARNED way that it is a delusion to fantasize that my hyper-control-freak ways
WERE REMOTELY SUFFICIENT, ADEQUATE OR EVEN ABLE
TO
make things "RIGHT." . . . certainly in any perfect or eternal sense--but usually in mundane ways and certainly in relationships.
The hard and long denied fact was that my HYPER CONTROL more often than not MADE THINGS WORSE. People could accommodate me--they usually had little choice if they wanted to be in relationship with me. But it wasn't a fun accommodation on their part.
They had to put up with the tyranny of my HYPER CONTROL . . . AND . . . THE INSULT that my HYPER CONTROL meant to their own identity, personhood and competence.
But grudging accommodation was not the BEST--and certainly not GOD'S BEST--in terms of RELATIONSHIP intimacy, smoothness, peace, pleasantness, fun, and certainly not MUTUAL FUN HEALING AND RESTORING INTIMACY.
It also fed my pride and diminished my humility--rather the opposite of God's priorities.
It also buttressed and fed my fears and insecurities rather than LETTING GO AND LETTING GOD in CONFIDENCE AND FAITH.
And, for a list of others . . . some merely with too much self-respect to bother with my HYPER CONTROL junk . . . and certainly many with !!!CONTROL!!! dynamics of their own . . . for a list of such folks, my !!!CONTROL!!! stuff was the opposite of ATTRACTIVE to be around.
People who truly loved me were just often not up to being that close to that much !!!CONTROL!!! junk.
My step-dad was fiercely stubborn and proud to the day he died. One of his closer emotionally 'adopted' daughters noted to him that he was stubborn and he admitted it TO HER. LOL.
And, when he was harsh those last hours of his life . . . and I noted: "Dad, you still have some final exam sections to pass," he agreed . . . started to retort and decided to say instead: "Oh--never mind."
That was progress for him. Late, but progress.
His rationalization was that HE CARRIED HIS OWN LOAD. HE WAS HONORABLY INDEPENDENT--taking care of his own stuff.
And, certainly those qualities--TO A POINT--are honorable and right. And that point is not static but moves depending on the other people and the context.
Beyond that point, they are insidious, arrogant, !!!CONTROLLING!!! . . . distancing . . . haughty . . . smug . . . self-righteous . . . and destructive--particularly to relationships; to our humility . . . and hindering to our being CONFORMED TO HIS IMAGE.
Dad's stance prevented--as the first 13 or so years of my life with him age 5-18--closeness and mutual understanding, collaboration, respect above a basic level, . . . and prevented an exponential greater achievement of good for The Kingdom as well as for each other.
I'd come back hoping that we could have a different greater quality of closeness. NOPE. Over his dead body . . . and it was so, in the end.
I also know that in China . . . I COULD NOT continue with such anywhere close to as I had before. They'd have shredded me up one side and down the other. They have 1,001 ways to out-control particularly "barbarians"--foreigners. And, they rightly treat Westerner's control freak stuff as arrogance on the part of the Westerners. And they will relentlessly confront it, assault, challenge it, chip away at it until the Westerner gives up. THEN they'll engage in authentic, genuine give and take RELATIONSHIP of treasured value and durability.
Thankfully, the long dark night of the soul after my divorce had already shredded dozens of layers of !!!CONTROL!!! junk.
Otherwise, my efforts to love the Chinese people into The Kingdom would NOT have been a fraction of the success they were.
I just know that my efforts to be 'my own god' in !!!CONTROL!!! of my life have routinely turned out mostly badly to very badly.
I still don't know much or well about fittingly LETTING GO AND LETTING GOD. But I'm far better than I used to be. And the results are far better.
I also know, that in pottery, my old OCD style wrecked most of the pots and certainly didn't create the better bigger ones. One HAS to learn a certain kind of abandoned FLOW to do pottery well. One of the main problems is that !!!CONTROL!!! tends to result in walls too thin, too low, too quick--and the pot collapses in demolished disarray.
I think there's a lesson in that somehow . . . !!!CONTROL!!! tends to wear the walls and boundaries of relationships too thin, too often, too quickly, too destructively.
The Bible says that the steps of a righteous person are ORDERED OF THE LORD.
We aren't the script writers. HE IS.
Abandoning to HIS SCRIPT brings life, peace, comfort, success.
Maintaining HYPER CONTROL does the opposite.
So I guess I encourage you to keep chipping away at LETTING GO AND LETTING GOD regardless how uneasy and uncomfortable and even frightful as it may be. There's life--greater life and freedom at the end of that tunnel.
It is a delusion that we can ALWAYS DO IT BEST.
It is a delusion that we can SPARE OURSELVES PAIN by HYPER CONTROL.
It is a delusion that HYPER CONTROL yields great stuff for The Kingdom, others or for ourselves.
And . . . many times, even when we CAN do it BEST--someone else doing it LESS WELL
IS THE BEST for the relationship; for The Kingdom; and even for us.
LUB,
