Losing Control

Some call it the ‘doobly’, others the ‘podger’, still others the ‘blipper’, the ‘twitcher’, the ‘melly’, the ‘ponker’, or the ‘didge’*.  The less creative might name it the ‘clicker’, the ‘flipper’, the ‘changer’, or the ‘buttons’; while, for traditionalists, no fancy, synthetic word can replace its proper name – ‘the TV remote control’.  In my family the name we used was ‘Zapper’, which some wit changed to ‘Frank’ (Zappa … get it?)  So, if you’re ever watching TV in my house and you want to turn up the volume you have to press Frank. (*These are the findings of the research organization, The English Project, which clearly has too much time on its hands.)

But whatever name you baptize it, the TV remote control enjoys a place near the apex of human beings’ greatest inventions.  What other $5 household item instills in the holder absolute power over an entire room of people?  Think about it.  Is there anything in your home that can create conflict, and resolve it, as quickly and effectively as the remote?  What else can pacify your screaming toddler, inspire your bored teenager, frustrate your elderly mother (who can’t work out how to operate it), and push you close to acrimonious divorce quite like the remote control?  Throughout the land it is the focus of household power struggles.  He or she who grasps the zapper really does control the world.  Keep it close to you, my son, and the earth will be yours, and everything in it.

For millions of people, God is like a cosmic TV watcher, manipulating the world with a zapper.  God is in control, but remotely.  He doesn’t get too involved in the affairs of daily life, but reclines in a LA-Zee Boy, light years away, watching and occasionally pressing the buttons to ordain his will to be done.

For others, God’s zapper is temperamental.  Maybe the batteries need changing, or perhaps there’s some dust in the connections.  Either way, God keeps pressing the buttons, but nothing happens.  He shakes it, taps it against the arm of his recliner, but it still it doesn’t work properly. For these folks, God is not in control – not even remotely.

God has a strange relationship with power.  At the first Christmas he gave it away.  The Lord of all things became completely powerless, submitting to the wishes and actions of human beings.  As St Paul says, Jesus “did not consider equality with God as something to be clung onto, but emptied himself, taking the role of a servant.”

It’s a self-giving that he calls his followers to emulate.  Yet sometimes human beings try to snatch power when they have no right to it.  A sobering lesson for many Christians is that God has not given us control over others – their actions, words, decisions, direction in life, or feelings.  We can use manipulation, blackmail, covert operations, and even outright threats to get people to do the things we want.  We can even call it ‘love’.

We can try to make decisions for the people we love, thinking we are protecting them.  In fact, we are preventing them from learning valuable lessons, like the child who cuts open a caterpillar’s cocoon because she has pity on the struggling butterfly within, only to deprive the creature of the muscle and resilience that it needs for life and which it only develops in the fight to be free.  Let’s hand over the zapper to the God who knows what to do with it.

Duncan