Women Out of Control

You want to know if you are a controlling person?

Shannon Popkin says, pay attention to the things you say and the way you say them. We often use our tongues as women, right, to control. Like, that's our, ooh, that's our, that's a good one to, you know, we can just slip in, even a little sigh, like, you know, that's a control tactic. And so, if we want to chart a new course for our lives, if we want to turn in a new direction, I say start with our words. James compares our tongues to a rudder.

And so, if we want to go in a new direction, start with what we say. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine. You'll find us online at familylifetoday.com.

If being a controlling person is an issue for you, maybe the place you need to focus on is learning how to control your tongue. We'll talk more about that today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. I'm wondering if there's been a moment, and Ann, I'm going to ask you this, has there been a moment in your 40 years of being married to Dave when you felt the most out of control, when you felt like, I am not safe in this moment? Has anything come to mind? You mean safe in this moment because of what might come out of my mouth? Well, I guess that's possible. I'm thinking of some circumstance or situation that Dave was leading you into where you are going, this just feels really risky and threatening. It might have been him saying, let's go skydiving. I mean, it could be that kind of thing. But it could also be him saying, let's launch a church or let's, you know, I don't know what.

Is there something that comes to mind where you go, this is where I started to feel this is really scary? Dave is great in terms of he really has not gone out and done something without first talking to me about it. We've really dialogued about it.

So, he's amazing at that. But there was one time when he came home and he said, hey, so we're having this campaign at church where we're raising money to have this addition onto our church and this is what I feel like we're going to give. It wasn't so much of an ask, this is what I've committed to. And I was thinking, are you insane? And I'm usually the one that's a little more generous, but this number was out of control. And I just said, no, like that's dumb.

That is a dumb decision. That was a fun conversation. I do remember that. But I did say to Dave, I've got to really pray about this to see like, is this from God, which I really did trust Dave hearing God's voice. And that was probably one of the only times that I thought, no, we are not doing this. I don't think I said it quite like that. The bad thing is I had already told the church, not the congregation, but the leadership we're in.

And then I'm driving home going, what in the world? I haven't even talked to Ann. I should have talked to Ann about this. And so I sort of tried to spit it in such an easy way that she would just go, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And she went, what? Are you kidding me?

We're not going to do that? And I'm like, you know, she didn't know it. We had kids coming up to college. So, you gave the money? I just felt like God said, yeah, you need to step out on this. We did, though, say this. And I said to her, let's take the night. You know, because I knew I could go back. It was just a couple people that I'd said, I'll do this.

Because I wanted to lead our congregation and be able to say, I'm not asking you to do something we haven't done, give sacrificially. So, we slept on it. Maybe we took a week.

I don't think it was a day, but it was a couple days. And then you said, I'm in. Yeah. So, we did. And, you know, it's one of those stories God did, ended up blessing us. It was not just financially, but it was a scary decision.

No, it was. A few months later, we found out a son got a full ride to college. And so, that was like, oh, that's helpful. We can trust God, after all.

Yes, right. You know, when you're talking about wanting to be in control, what you're really talking about is, do I trust God in the middle of vulnerable situations? And that's what we're talking about this week. Shannon Popkin is joining us. And I should mention, we're talking about control with her this week. Next week, we're going to talk about something that you would say, Shannon, is maybe parallel to control in terms of, if we're talking about besetting sins that women regularly struggle with, control is one of them. What's the other one? Comparison.

Oh, Shannon. You're just hitting all of our buttons right now. So, we'll talk about comparison next week, but we're talking about control this week. And you shared with us already that you see this happening at the beginning in the Garden with Eve. But as you looked at Scripture, you saw this control issue emerging with women in Scripture over and over again.

Yeah. You know, when I recognized that in Genesis 3.16, where God says, Your desire will be for your husband, when I recognized that that curse had to do with me wanting to take control, I thought, well, if I'm being affected by this curse thousands of years later, if I go back to God's Word, surely I can find some other women who were living out this curse and maybe I could learn from them. Maybe I could find some mistakes to avoid or I could learn God's perspective on this whole control matter. And that's exactly what I found in Scripture. Woman after woman after woman was doing exactly what I was doing.

They were trying to take matters into their own hands, trying to make it all turn out right according to their little small-minded perspective, and they were making everybody miserable in the process. So, for example, you get to Abraham and Sarah. And, of course, the first thing I'm thinking of is God had said to them, You're going to have a baby, and they weren't having a baby, and Sarah said, We've got to take this matter into our own hands, right?

Yes, yeah. And it says that Abraham listened to the voice of Sarah. And then that echoes back to the word also says that Adam listened to the voice of his wife. Even in both cases, this man was being influenced by the voice of his wife, who was leading him in a direction that God didn't want to take their family. And so, by speaking, by probably nagging or trying to take control, the wife was not inviting her husband to listen to God. And let's be clear here. We're not saying a husband shouldn't listen to the voice of his wife, right?

No, no, no. I mean, a marriage works when husbands and wives are listening to one another. And that's the tension, right? Yes. Especially if you're the woman thinking, I want to give my husband some wisdom, and yet this could be controlling. Yes.

So, I'm looking at two women. How do you navigate that tension? Because there are times when God is going to use you.

Yeah. He's used Ann thousands of times to help me in a good way. And so, I mean, you two are sitting here going, that's the tension you're fighting, right? Am I controlling my man, or am I actually – so, how do you do that? Well, I think it's a question of, am I trying to take God's place? Am I trying to direct this ship with my voice, or am I deferring to my husband? No, you listen to God. You listen to God. I want to give you my input. I want to share what I see in this situation.

And maybe I have some thoughts on this money gift that you've committed to, and I want to share those with you. But I ultimately defer to you as you follow God for a wife to invite that kind of leadership. That is so wise of you, of saying, here are my thoughts, but you should go to God and see what you think. Because that's very humbling to do.

It is. Because you're saying, I may not be right. And sometimes with women, I can think, I am right.

You know, you need to do this. But to say, this is what I'm thinking, why don't you spend some time with God? And Mary Ann has, over the years, she said this so many times, I will come and say, I think we ought to do this or this, or I've got some idea. And her first thing is, have you prayed about it? And I'm like, dang. You're being so smart. Have you found this, Bob?

Here's what I found. I go pray about it, and I'm like, God thinks just like Ann again. Why does God always think like my wife?

I don't like that. If both of us can acknowledge some level of humility, that we are both trying to figure out how can we honor God with our lives, and that's a starting presupposition. Are we looking at this through the lens of what's going to honor God, or this is what I want, this is what you want, how much of self is involved in this and how much of it is what God wants? And if what we both want is for God to be honored, now all of a sudden it's not a battle between you and me, it's both of us trying to discover what is God's will here. You're not always going to land in the same place, but at least you're starting with the same presupposition, which is our ultimate goal is we want God to be honored. And I love one of the lines in your book. Again, maybe I love it because I'm a husband and a man, but it says, I need to stop talking, badgering, and pressuring with my agenda long enough for my husband to hear God's agenda.

That's hard, right? Because, yes, it's one of the hardest, like that's the battle of self, and not caving into my desire for control, but instead surrendering control to God. Well, even with Sarah, as we were talking about Sarah earlier, I can understand Sarah's dilemma. She's thinking, it's been 10 years. And maybe she starts thinking, maybe God wants me to have a part of this.

And so I think it's easy to kind of do, we get in our heads and we think, how can I help God instead of surrendering this to God and going to God? So, what did Sarah do right and what did she do wrong? Well, let's talk about what Sarah did wrong first, and then we can talk about what she did right. Sarah's idea was to invite another woman into the marriage.

And this was a customary practice, but this was not God's plan. God had promised that Abraham would have a child with Sarah. So Hagar was Sarah's idea.

She said, I'll give my handmaiden to you and you can have a child through this handmaiden. And so Ishmael, this was not the son of promise. And there's this scene where finally Sarah does have a baby, baby Isaac, who is the child of promise. And there's this scene where Isaac is, they're throwing a party. Isaac is weaned and they're celebrating his life. And there's this time when Ishmael is kind of picking on Isaac. They're about 13 years apart, so Ishmael's a teenager.

He's picking on Isaac and it's pretty ugly. And Sarah steps in and she says, get them out of my house. And she talks to Abraham and she says, I want this handmaiden and I want her son out of our lives, like send them away. And the amazing thing is God reinforces that. And he tells Abraham, yeah, that's what I want you to do. I think that it's this moment when Sarah for the first time recognizes that she has introduced a threat into her family. You know, Abraham and Sarah are old.

They're going to die soon. And these two boys are going to be living in the same family. And this older one is always going to be picking on the younger one. And this promised son is always going to have this threat. And so, by stepping in, by inserting herself, Sarah has created a threat to God's plan. And as women, I think we do the same thing as controlling wives and moms, especially as moms. We try to control our kids and we try to bring them to church and we try to make them do churchy things.

And we try to iron out all the poor behaviors that we see in their lives. And by taking control, I think what we do is we produce false imitation sons. You know, Ishmael was not the real son. He was the result of what Sarah could produce on her own by inviting this handmaid into their family circle.

Ishmael represents what I can produce. Isaac represents what only God can produce. And as we look at inviting our kids to be followers of God, I think we have to be really careful about this thing with control.

Because we can produce imitation Christians who are the result of our work, just like Sarah. And God wants to produce genuine sons. And sometimes he wants control girl mamas to take a step back and let God do his work. Here's how you say it in your book, Control Girl. You say, I think controlling women produce some of the godliest looking families in the church.

I read that and I thought, ouch. But I remember feeling it when we were raising our family. Don't you want your family to look good at church? Don't you want your boys to be behaved and your girls to be honoring young women? And you want everybody to look around and it's a reflection of whether you're succeeding as a parent or not. But you go on to say, we want our loved ones to inherit the future God has promised to his children. But what if we're producing slaves and not sons? So true. And I think we have to pull back and go, are we creating behavior modified rule followers or people, young men and women who from their heart are choosing to follow God? Are they just under our control and being compliant?

And if that's what you got, then the college years are going to be a real roller coaster for you. Because when they're no longer under your thumb, they go, now I get to do what mama would never let me do before. Yeah. I remember one time my son as a teenager wanted to go to a different church. He wasn't saying he didn't want to go to church. He just was saying he didn't want to go to our church anymore. And I was, that was not okay with me. I was frustrated by that because I had this idea of like our family, we all sat together in church.

I want to see my kids all lined up next to me and I wanted, you know, what would I do with the questions of people asking, well, where's your son all the time? And you know, he had made friends at a different church and he wanted to go to youth group there. And that was hard for me. And I had to, you know, I had to wrestle with God over that. And ultimately we laid that down and we let him go to a different youth group. And you know what, he's walking with the Lord. And I'm really thankful that we gave in.

And I mean, that's not even a big deal. We were letting him go to church, you know. At another church, yeah. I know when Ann and I, you know, it's been 33 years since our first son was born, but I picked up a book then. I can't tell you the author, but it was, the title was The Dangers of Growing Up in a Christian Home. And I remember just seeing the title and going, I've got to read this because I didn't grow up in a Christian home, but now I'm leading one.

So I thought, what are the dangers that I'm going to bring as a Christian husband and dad to our family? And it was really interesting, and this isn't the only book that says this, but it said, the research says the worst thing you can do if you want kids to walk with Jesus when they're adults is control. That was the number one parenting style that led to bad results. Now, they're not saying total permissive parenting is the answer, but if there's a balance of truth and grace, I've never heard that one before, you know, it's the person of Christ, truth and grace.

If there's a balance, it leads to a better result. But I remember reading that thinking, oh my goodness, because our tendency is control our kids, especially as they get into teenage years. And the biggest learning of that book was at some point, they've got to find their faith, not your faith. And that's the hardest thing for a parent to let happen is like, I can't control them anymore. I've actually got to let them fall and make hard choices so that they own the faith, not mom and dad's faith. So I think it gets to what you're saying, right? I mean, even that decision to let your son go to another church, that's a hard control, you know, to let go of that.

But in the end, it's the best result, right? Well, it's one of the things we talk about in the Art of Parenting video series. You guys talk about this in the series. There comes a point in our, as we're raising our kids, in their development where we transition from being the control agents in their lives to being coaches and consultants in their lives. And a coach doesn't control the player on the field. The coach coaches the player and calls a timeout and says, here, we're going to run this play, we're going to do this. But ultimately, he can't control what that player is going to do in the moment. And he can bench the player, which you may need to do with your teenagers from time to time, right?

They get grounded or they get a timeout. But the parent who is trying to treat a 15-year-old the way you treated him when he was a five-year-old is a parent who's headed for trouble. And the issue is probably a bigger control issue with you than it is a disobedience issue with your child.

Now, again, I don't know all your circumstances. We're saying something that I don't want people to misapply. But I think a lot of parents have 16-year-olds and they're still trying to treat them like six-year-olds. And you can't be that controlling parent with a 16-year-old. And, you know, ultimately, God wants to be the God of our children. And eventually, we're not going to be in that parent role.

And God wants to parent our children. There's the scene, you know, we just talked about Sarah sending Hagar and her son out into the wilderness. And there's the scene where, I mean, that was sort of like a death sentence.

They are out in the wilderness on their own and Hagar puts her teenage son under a bush. They've run out of food and water and he's going to die. And it says that she backs away the length of a bowshot. And she's crying. She's crying out to God, but it's interesting. It says, and then God heard Ishmael. And, you know, when a child is dying from thirst, I'm sure his voice was not strong.

You know, it was just a whisper. And yet God was close enough to hear Ishmael. And it's also interesting that God is the one who named Ishmael. His name means God hears. I wonder if God had that scene in mind when he named this boy Ishmael that God would be the one to hear Ishmael's cry. God wanted to be Ishmael's God. But then God opened Hagar's eyes and she saw this well that she hadn't seen. I don't know if it was like it wasn't there before or she just happened to not see it. You know, it was shielded from her eyesight, but he opened her eyes.

And you know what? God does that with parents, especially parents of teenagers. You know, when we entrust our children to God and when we lay them down and we feel that distance, you know, we feel, we see them struggling.

And sometimes, you know, they're in very dangerous, precarious situations and we look at them. It is comforting to know that God is close enough and He hears them. But it's also comforting to know that when we entrust them to God, He will open our eyes to solutions that we had not thought of. So, He does use us still in their lives in these young adult years. But ultimately, God wants us to trust Him and He wants our children to trust Him. He wants to be the God of both of us. I think we're all faced with a moment in time where God's asking, can you surrender them to Me? Can you surrender your marriage to Me, your husband to Me, your life to Me?

And I don't know about you, Shannon, but I have found that to be really difficult at times. Even when each of our sons were born, they were all in the neonatal care after they were born because of complications. And I'll never forget, do you remember this, Dave, with CJ? When we were in the hospital and they said, I mean, they just had some pretty scary things that were going on. And I felt like as I was laying in that bed with this firstborn, I wanted to cling to him and hold him, my son. And I felt like God was saying, can you surrender him to Me?

And I was like, no, obviously, this looks catastrophic. And yet, I'll never forget of saying, God, He's yours. You created him. You love him. And now, I mean sobbing because I was so fearful, but then recognizing and remembering that God is good. He loves me.

I can trust Him no matter the outcome. But every single child, I felt like I must have a strong grip on my kids because with every single child, by the third child, I knew the neonatal care doctor. And he walked in the room, I said, no, not you again. But God's saying it. And I don't know about you, but I find that I have to continually do this, even with adult kids, because now I don't have any control.

Right. Well, and now there's bigger things I'd like to control, you know, like who they date or who they marry. But I also have to turn the tables and ask myself, okay, if it really is up to me, if I'm really the one who has to make it all turn out right for my children, like, is that really comforting? That just brings out stress and anxiety and anger and frustration. And ultimately, I find the most peace and the most security, that rock-solid security in knowing that I don't have to ultimately be in control because God already is in control. You end your book with five lessons that have helped you turn the tide in terms of this control impulse in your life.

We're just going to walk through them quickly. The first one is a reverse of the curse. So, it's going from your desire will be for your husband, your desires to be in control, to a different kind of desire. What's the new desire? The desire that God would be in control. And in those big situations, like you're talking about in the neonatal care unit, where the life of your child is at risk, like those are big things that we have to lay down and surrender to God, but also our heart is trained in the little by little moments. You know, like we've talked about, what am I going to say?

What am I going to watch on television? Am I going to limit myself, my relationships where my relationship with my husband is the one relationship that I cling to and not a relationship outside of my marriage? You know, things like that, little by little choices where I surrender to God's plan, to God's idea of what is good instead of my own. As you're saying that, I'm thinking of Philippians 4.8, which says, you know, you think on these things, the things that are pure and noble.

If in marriage we thought on those things about one another instead of dwelling on what is wrong and what is blameful and what is messed up, if you thought on what's pure and what's lovely and just make that your focus. Which is number three. Let's do two and then three, but that's kept the red pen, right? But talk about two, which is tame the tongue. Tame the tongue, yeah, choosing what I'm going to say and, again, like letting God direct my words rather than me be the one. You know, our tongues, we often use our tongues as women, right, and to control, like that's our, ooh, that's a good one. You know, we can just slip in even a little sigh, like, you know, that's a control tactic. And so if we want to chart a new course for our lives, if we want to turn in a new direction, I say start with our words.

James compares our tongues to a rudder. And so if we want to go in a new direction, start with what we say. And then the third one Dave mentioned is cap the red pen, so that's don't circle everything that everybody's doing wrong? Yeah, scribbling red ink all over our loved ones. You know, if they have the information and we can continue to give the information over and over and over, it's probably turned into a control tactic. And then number four, you say live within limits.

What's that mean? Yeah, you know, God has given us limits. In the Garden of Eden, there was only one off-limit thing.

It was this one tree. But now we don't see correctly. We live in this era of blindness and things look good to us, which God says are not good. Things look bad to us that God says are good. And so we have to defer to God and live within the limits, the limits of marriage.

Even in a 24-hour day, we have bodies that need sleep, going to bed on time. That's a surrender. That's training my heart to live in the limits that God has given me, also my food, my entertainment choices, how I choose to spend my money. These are all ways that I can train my heart to, rather than give in to myself, to be like Jesus and say, not my will, but yours be done.

And the last one is to be respectfully His. Yeah, in the marriage especially, you know, this curse started with Eve and her husband. And I think this is one of the primary relationships in life.

We love our husbands so much and we're so passionate about these men in our lives. And so for us, laying down control often means laying down control of our husbands. And I think it's really important, at least for me, and I'm guessing a lot of people can relate to this, if I'm going to surrender and sort of loosen my grip on control of anything in my life, I have to surrender to someone or to something, right? I'm trusting someone else. And obviously we're talking about trusting God. And I remember early in my Christian walk thinking this, God, I don't know you well enough to trust you.

And so at the end of the day, even I would encourage a listener right now to say, how well do you know the one we're asking you to release control to? Because if you don't know Him, you're not going to. Like, why would I trust Him? But if you do, and I've discovered the more I study His word, the more I read it, the more I'm reminded like, oh my goodness, that's who you are.

I forgot. It isn't like I need more faith. I just need to see Him who He really is. I just need mustard seed faith and a big, huge God. And so for me, it's being with God's people, it's being in His word, it's praying, it's saying, God, show me who you are. And as I get to see Him, you get to a place like, oh yeah, this makes sense.

He's worthy of my trust. And one of the ways that I've done that over the years is by really trying to apply Romans 12.1, which has always been a favorite verse to me. Paul says to offer your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice.

And so in the morning when my alarm goes off, it's just become this habit of hitting the alarm and saying, God, I give you this day. I surrender myself to you. I picture myself on an altar. I give you myself, Lord. I give you my words, my thoughts, my actions, and let me live them as you would. Because if I don't do that, I'm going to live them in control and trying to protect myself.

So that could be a good application for all of us. Well, and it may be that listeners this week have thought, OK, I thought I had an anger issue, but it's really a control issue. Or I have seen how my desire for control is leaking out of the cracks of my life, and I need the Lord's help. And maybe, Dave, to your point, the first thing they need to do is just ask about their own relationship with the Lord. Do I have a relationship with Jesus? Have I ever surrendered my life to Him? That's the starting point for all of this, to try to become less of a controlling person in your own power.

That can work for a while, but you can't sustain that over a lifetime without the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. So you go to our website at familylifetoday.com. There's a link there that talks about what it means to have a relationship with Jesus.

And maybe as you've been listening, you've thought, I don't know that that's true for me. Go to familylifetoday.com and click on the link and find out about the two ways to live and which is the way God would have you live. And then while you're there, find out more about Shannon's book, which is called Control Girl, which we've got in our Family Life Today Resource Center.

And read this on your own or read it with other women. You can order it from us online at familylifetoday.com. Shannon, thank you for being with us and for helping us unpack this issue. Great to have you here. Thank you.

Thanks so much for having me. Again, the book we're talking about is called Control Girl by Shannon Popkin. Order from us online at familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to get a copy. We've also got a link on our website to Shannon's website where you can follow her blog and find out more about resources she has available. Leaders guides for the studies that she's done are available there. Again, go to familylifetoday.com to order a copy of the book Control Girl by Shannon Popkin or call 1-800-358-6329.

That's 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word Today. By the way, you can find out more about the Art of Parenting video series when you go to our website as well. Find that at familylifetoday.com.

It might be a great series for you to go through with other parents over the summer or plan to go through it with your small group next fall. Again, the information is available online at familylifetoday.com. You've heard us talking this month about the matching gift opportunity that's been made available to us here at Family Life.

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It's a book of prayers that we can pray during very difficult times. It's a great book, a beautiful book, and it's our gift to you when you donate today and help us take advantage of the matching gift. So we hope to hear from you. And we hope you have a great weekend. Hope you and your family are able to somehow connect together and worship with members of your local church. On Monday, Shannon Popkin's going to be back with us again.

Instead of talking about being a control girl, she's going to talk about the whole issue of comparison and how that can be a trap for any of us that we fall into. Hope you can tune in for that on Monday. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team.

On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. Have a great weekend. We'll see you Monday for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.