If Your Peace Depends On Control, That Is Not Peace

Last week I told you the truth you avoid keeps you bound.

Today I want to go one layer down, to the reason we avoid it in the first place.

Pride.

Not the loud, arrogant, chest-out kind. The quiet kind. The kind that lives in good, sincere, church-going people who would never call themselves prideful.

Here is how you spot it. Pride hates correction.

And it does not hate correction because correction hurts. It hates correction because correction threatens control.

Correction Is Not The Enemy Of Your Comfort

We tell ourselves we resist correction because it stings. That is not the real reason.

Correction stings for a second. What pride is actually protecting is not your feelings. It is your grip. Your sense that you are the one running the show, that your read on the situation is the final word, that you do not have to hand the wheel to anyone, including God.

Correction says, you might be wrong about this. And to a heart quietly built on control, being wrong does not feel like information. It feels like a threat to the throne.

Solomon did not soften it. Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but whoever hates correction is stupid.

That is a hard word. He used it on purpose. Because the refusal to be corrected is not a personality style. It is the exact thing that keeps a person stuck for decades while they call it conviction.

Faithful Are The Wounds Of A Friend

The people who love you will tell you the truth. That is how you know they love you.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. A real friend will risk the relationship to hand you the truth. A flatterer will hand you whatever keeps you comfortable and calls it kindness.

We live in a world building tools designed to agree with us. A whole culture of mirrors that reflect back whatever we already believed and call it insight.

Do not build your life on a mirror. You cannot be sharpened by your own reflection. You can only be confirmed by it, and confirmation, when you are wrong, is not a gift. It is a trap with good lighting.

You need the people, and the God, who will tell you the hard thing across the table instead of the comfortable thing you came in hoping to hear.

The Peace That Is Actually Control

Here is where this gets close to home.

A lot of what we call peace is not peace. It is control wearing peace's clothes.

Dr. Caroline Leaf said it plainly, and I have not been able to shake it. If your peace depends on everything going your way, that is not actually peace. That is control. Learning to be stable in uncertainty is one of the most underrated skills you can have.

Read that again.

The person who only feels peace when the plan holds, when the people comply, when the outcome is guaranteed, does not have peace. They have a tight grip and a calm face.

Real peace can sit in the middle of uncertainty and not flinch, because it is anchored to a Person, not an outcome. Be still, and know that I am God. Not be still once everything is handled. Be still, and know, right in the middle of the part you cannot control.

Pride cannot do that. Pride has to manage the outcome. Which means pride can never actually rest.

The Grip You Cannot See

Here is the problem. You cannot loosen a grip you cannot feel.

Most people who are white-knuckling control have no idea they are doing it. It just feels like being responsible. It feels like caring. It feels like faithfulness. Fear disguises itself brilliantly, and control is one of its favorite costumes.

The Fear Compass surfaces it. In three minutes, it shows you where fear has quietly turned into control in your life, and what it is costing you. It is free, and it is one of the most clarifying three minutes you will spend this month.

→ Take the free Fear Compass HERE

Correction is not an attack on you.

It is God trying to hand you back the freedom that control has been quietly costing you.

Onward,
Chris Behnke

P.S. Next week is one of my favorites in this whole series. I want to show you what happens when you finally loosen your grip and let God change your plans. Prudence said something recently that reframed the whole thing for me, and it involves a flu bug, a sinking ship, and the God who reroutes you on purpose. Don't forget to look for the ravens.