Shrink Your Ego
NOTE: As I set about writing this reflection, I keep thinking of variations on the title. I've considered:
"Shrink Your Ego: Have More Fun"
"Shrink Your Ego: Be a REAL Success" and
"Shrink Your Ego: Let Go and Get More"
Since I can't use all of them, I'll stick with the short version and let it stand.
I thought for a long time that maximum enjoyment of life came from being as in control as possible - control the situations; control the people; make sure that things turn out the way that you want them to. This turned out to be an unhappy approach. Being in control has several negative sides.
Being “in control” can make us responsible for a whole lot of things we don’t want to be responsible for. It’s not uncommon for people who insist on being in control to whine about how everything falls to them and how everything seems to be their job. This heavy feeling of responsibility is due to our insistence on having control. If we let it go we wouldn’t have this feeling of being overwhelmed.
Being in control often puts us in the position of having to play God. Ironically when we insist on taking control, God gives it to us and then often we don’t know what to do with it. We end up using it according to our own fallen ways which produces anything but what we were looking for in the first place which was pleasure, fulfillment a sense of significance and so on.
Being in control may win us the admiration of people outside, but the people who fall under our control often become irritated at us and perhaps start to resist us. We find ourselves struggling in our relationships, though that is not what we intended.
The answer for me has been to give up insisting on having control. One can find pleasure in small things. One can find joy in knowing that God is in control even those who delude themselves in to thinking they are in control haven’t experienced it. I’m content to let them think they are in control while I try to live under God’s control. At the micro level, others may feel that they are making things happen. I have learned to look at these people who control, or seek to control, my life and I ask myself, “How is this person a tool in God’s hands so I become the person God wants me to be?” Others may think they are molding and conforming me to their will. What matters is in the midst of this, am I being conformed to the likeness of Christ?
I keep asking myself, “Am I doing God’s will?” My entering into competition for control does not contribute positively to this scenario, so the more others try to control me the more I try to submit to God and then the better the outcome. Absolute positive outcome guaranteed every time. That’s not to say that there are not some frustrations, but dealing with frustration is a character building exercise. It’s not to say there won’t be some pain. Jesus suffered pain and didn’t complain.
Because I acknowledge God to be sovereign, I believe that if I give the circumstances of my life to God, positive outcomes become His responsibility. I just look for the benefits to flow. Those benefits may not be the ones I would choose naturally. They may not advance me within the world system, getting me more money, more honour, more recognition for my accomplishments, and the like. But the benefits will be real, non-the-less, being what we might call “Kingdom benefits.”
Oddly enough some of my most difficult relationships (in terms of control) have been the most spiritually fruitful ones. I think in particular of one man who was very much in control of everything around him. He was just one of those guys who made things happen and things happened they way he wanted them to happen or there was a price to pay and everybody else paid that price. I learned much from him. I learned many things about what I don’t want to do and what I don’t want to become. All in all it was a very positive situation.
I don’t want to give the impression that I seek to be irresponsible. I have a family and I take responsibilities for that very seriously. I am involved in ministry and I take the responsibilities associated with that very seriously. There are areas that are mine to control and I do the best job I can in those areas. My concern is the personality issue in which the drive to control is not related to one’s role, but simply the response which comes forward in every circumstance, in every relationship.
Having a well-fed ego which successfully manipulates circumstances and people isn’t all it's cracked up to be. If my goal in life is to glorify God by becoming like the Lord Jesus, the last thing I need is to be in control, at least “in control” in the way that most people think of that. When I submit to others and consciously submit to God in those circumstances, then He can make me what He wants me to be and that is the goal of this exercise called “life.”
Ron Hughes
© March 2007
