A warning to control freaks

My father’s move from his apartment to my house has brought my “stuff” to the surface. Specifically, it has brought out my desire for control.

The upstairs quarters have finally been whipped into submission, but the living room floor is covered with a gaggle of black electrical wires resembling nests of snakes, as well as other “stations” of items I have corralled according to kind, as the first step to organizing, donating, and pitching into the dumpster. Have I ever mentioned that I cannot abide clutter?

Well, I will have to, at least for a while. Not only that, but what the Holy Spirit tells me is that I will have to do so while not neglecting the commands to love my husband and father, to cook for them, and (gulp) to take breaks from sorting in order to commune with them.

My husband mentioned this inscrutable verse to me in my madness:

“For rebellion is as the sin of divination …” (1 Samuel 15:23, ESV).

Divination is “the practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown by supernatural means.” It is related to witchcraft (as other translations render “divination”), sorcery, and black magic. What, pray tell, does witchcraft have to do with an obsession to have my house under control?

In 1 Samuel, God is making a comparison between rebellion and divination/witchcraft. King Saul has just rebelled against God. God told him to totally annihilate the Amalekites and their animals, but the king has only partially complied. Saul wants a different outcome from God’s. He wants to micromanage the situation. It is the prophet Samuel’s unenviable duty to announce to Saul that he has just forfeited the kingship for this act of rebellion.

What Saul gave into—and what I must not give into—is the craving for control. The insistence on control is at the root of witchcraft. One advertisement for voodoo dolls found through a Google search begins: “What is your deepest desire? Luck? Love? Bringing misery to your enemies? Voodoo offers all these possibilities and more.” Voodoo, like all witchcraft and divination, is about me controlling my world, me arranging it the way I want it—and heaven help the person who gets in my way.

My own desire for a totally controlled household is, of course, a more socially acceptable form of “rebellion” than that of sticking pins into a doll to make somebody pay. No one will see the blackness of it but me and God. Indeed, to others it may look commendable. But the point of God’s statement in 1 Samuel 15:23 is that rebellion is as or like the sin of divination or witchcraft. The two are similar at bottom. The germ of every great sin is in a little sin. This is why “everyone who hates his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15, ESV).

The opposite of insisting on controlling life and everyone in your environment, and eliminating everyone in the way of your ambition, is submitting to God. Submission is also the antidote to rebellion. Eve rebelled in the Garden of Eden because she wanted control. Jesus submitted all desire for control to God.

Today my house is physically out of control. Next week it will be organized again. But if I am only nice to people when my house is organized, I had better go back to my knees and pray for a different niceness that’s not dependent on my cravings being met.

Andrée Seu Peterson’s Won’t Let You Go Unless You Bless Me, regularly $12.95, is now available from WORLD for only $5.95.