Letting Go Of Control Is Letting Peace In

​The more I try to control life, the more life ends up controlling me.

I’ve seen this truth in so many corners of my own story. For years, I thought I could manage the fear and loneliness and feelings of insignificance that haunted me by drinking. I thought alcohol was a tool to keep me in control of how I felt. But over time, it became painfully clear that alcohol wasn’t a tool, it was a master. What started as me using alcohol ended with alcohol using me.

I saw the same lesson last Friday when I walked into a correctional facility to talk with a group of prisoners. As I looked around the room, I realized that almost every man was there because of an attempt to control something: a relationship, a fear, a craving, a moment that felt impossible to face. And now few humans have less control than they have. 

I’ve felt that in my broken relationships, too. I wanted things to go my way, to meet my needs, to quiet my insecurities. But the tighter I gripped the more those relationships slipped out of my hands. I've wanted desperately to control the path to love all the while being unwilling to surrender to it. 

Why is it so hard for us to surrender? Even in the aftermath of destruction, when we can clearly see how our efforts at control have failed, our first instinct is often to double down and fight harder. Richard Rohr says: “The word ‘control’ does not exist in the vocabulary of the saints.” 

Yet it remains in ours, every day, on repeat.

Our culture doesn’t help. Everywhere we look, we’re promised that control is within our reach if we just buy the right product or follow the right plan. Fitness ads tell us we can control our bodies. Productivity apps promise we can control our time. Financial gurus assure us we can control our futures. And maybe on the surface, these things give us small wins. But eventually, life reveals that small wins don't equal big control. 

The hard truth - and the freeing truth - is that surrender isn’t weakness. It’s wisdom. Pastor Tim Keller once said, “You don’t realize Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.” 

That’s the paradox of surrender: only when we stop pretending we’re in charge do we discover a power greater than ourselves. But is there anything we want to give up less than the illusion that we can ultimately be in charge? 

Is there anything we fight harder for in life than to be in charge of our life?

For me, surrender has meant admitting I’m not the author of every chapter of my life. It’s meant listening instead of forcing. It’s meant turning over the wheel when my need to steer has driven me into ditches time and again, and even not so rarely head on collisions. 

The more I’ve loosened my grip, the more I’ve found something better than control - occasional peace. 

Oh, trust me, I am still prone to closing my fist, trying to once again fight for control when my life feels so frequently chaotic, but I have loosened it enough to know that real peace isn't inside the fist, it's in two open palms lifted upward. 

Upward. 

Surrender. 

That is ultimately the story of every life - a fight for control only to realize that's a fight you can never win. It's what you do with that realization that matters most in life. 

Surrender.