“I really don’t like people.” The words stung and caught my attention, even as I laughed. The conversation was between myself and a person I had just met. It immediately brought judgment, but not possibly in the way you might think. It wasn’t the other person who was making the statement. It was me. I was the one who found myself admitting that out loud.
As I heard the words come from my mouth, I realized how sad it was that I truly felt that way. As I listened to myself, it was like God smacking me in the face and saying, “How can you serve my people if you don’t like them?” Pow!!
This was the beginning of a real change for me. This new awareness of my feelings towards others had me repenting and praying to God asking Him to take control of my heart and change me. It was obvious I was not going to change without God’s intervention.
Control is a multi-dynamic word. It can be used as both a noun and verb. The definition for both is similar but has some very subtle, but meaningful distinctions. In the noun form, control is defined as the power to influence or direct people’s behavior or the course of events. The verb variation is defined as determine the behavior or supervise the running of. In my thinking, one is saying, “I have control or do not have control,” while the other is saying, “I have been given control or not given control.”
Over the course of the past several years and the insight I have acquired through the use of the Enneagram, I have become very aware of my attempts to influence or direct my external and internal worlds so that they remain peaceful. I’ve attempted to determine my internal feelings about myself by ignoring parts of my past that truly needed to be healed but I was too busy controlling the pain and anger to realize that I needed to allow the feelings to surface in order for me to truly be free from them.
From an external perspective, I’ve attempted to control my relationships, unconsciously manipulating situations to keep the peace while still getting what I wanted. But when my attempts at control failed, it led to resentment and frustration that has most often been directed at others, thus leading me to the declaration that “I really don’t like people.”
But it’s not really people I don’t like. It’s the internal conflict and tension that disrupts my peace that I don’t like. It’s the control that the world seems to have on me and the conflict and tension that I tend to hold inside myself because of all the brokenness in the world. I’m thankful that God caught my attention and encouraged me to get curious about this part of me. It led me to paying even more attention to the patterns of my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This led me to take this passage in Romans 12 more seriously:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:1-2
Praying to God to take control of my being is my sacrifice and my offering to God in worship. I do not want to be conformed to the patterns of this world. Patterns that include dislike and even hatred towards other people. Giving God control of my heart, of my mind, and my soul is the way I can express my love and gratitude to God. It is the way that I will be transformed.
Giving up control to God, sets me free from the burdens that I have been carrying in this world, burdens God never intended me to carry. For what are we really meant to control, if anything, except our willingness to yield to the Holy Spirit. Yielding to the Holy Spirit and becoming aligned with the Gospel gives us hope and sets us free from shame as God’s love fills us more and more.
“And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
Romans 5:5
Next Step
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