Are You a Control Girl?

Shannon Popkin: What if we lived like it’s true that “Heaven rules”? 

I think sometimes I live like it’s true that the government rules or cancer rules or my to-do list rules. Sometimes I act like I rule. (laughter) Can anybody relate to that?

I remember being in the grocery store one time and getting a phone call from my five-year old. He said, “Mommy, can we go play in Jaybin’s kiddie pool next door?”

And I said, “Well, what did Dad say?”

And he goes, “Well, I asked Daddy, and he said, ‘Yes,’ but I knew I had to call you because you are the ruler over us, right?” (laughter) 

Oh, man. I don’t know where that message goes. It got a little twisted!

We’re going to talk today about what it looks like when we live like there is a Ruler, and it’s not us—where He is the Ruler over all.

I was in Bible study one year, and I asked the women in our group one day to go around the circle and share a prayer request about a relationship that they wanted for us to pray about. I said, “It could be your marriage. It could be a parenting situation.” But that day, every woman around the table shared about a really controlling mom or a really controlling mother-in-law.

Afterward, I leaned in, and said, “I have a question for you all. How do we not become them, these ones that we have prayed about?” Because I could see that happening in my case.

God had already been opening my eyes to this problem with control. I said, “How do we ensure that in fifteen or twenty years from now it’s not our daughters and our daughters-in-law sitting around this table, and the prayer request that they have is about this really controlling woman, and her name is Shannon? Or her name is your name?”

I mean, I could see this happening. I remember crying on the way home from Bible study that day because I had thought about what control could do to an afternoon or a date night with my husband and me telling him, “Here’s what you wear. Here’s where you park.” Like, all these things I’m trying to control.

I see how that could ruin a date. Or a time at the beach where my kids are just playing, and I’m, like, “Get the sand off the blankets. Don’t swim too late or too deep.”

I’ve seen what control could do to ruin something in the short term. I had not thought about the long term. I hadn’t thought about where it was taking me in life.

So I leaned in and asked that question, “How do we not become them?” And I wonder, do you have an answer? Do you have an answer to that question: “How do I not become a controlling older woman?” Because I don’t think those we were praying about at Bible study, I don’t think they were trying to be a burden to their families. I don’t think they were trying to make anybody miserable.

I think they were doing what I do. I think they were kind of clamping down, digging their heels in. They were white knuckling it through, trying to make everything turn out right. Yes, they were just trying to make it turn out right.

Now, I have to tell you, that day at Bible study was right before the holidays. And if there was ever a time that our inner-control girl wants to just rise up, it’s holidays, vacations, right? Or, for me, family-picture day. Anybody? (laughter) You’re just, like, ahhhhh, “It has to be a certain way!”

I have these heightened expectations, and I just turn into this person where, what I’ve noticed is, the more controlling I get, the more miserable we all become. Would you say that’s true? Say that with me: The more controlling I get, the more miserable we all become. 

So here’s what I want to ask: do you notice this in your own heart? Do you see this deep desire that you have to take and get and keep control? Do you notice this about yourself? And do you see the fallout in any relationships? Do you see who you’re becoming as you try to take control? Do you notice that? Do you see the potential that control has to ruin relationships—to ruin you, really.

This afternoon, I’m going to talk about how to surrender to God and say, “Heaven rules,” to live like it’s true that Heaven rules. And there are two things that I think might surprise you.

First of all: how hard that is. (laughter)

And second of all: the way that this could change your life. This idea of taking those white knuckles, those fists that desire control, and opening it up. That is the posture to receive something from the Lord. It’s also the posture that will change your life.

So, control . . . it’s not a problem that we often talk about, is it? I don’t ever hear women saying, “Oh, yes, I’m really controlling.” (laughter) It’s not a way that we describe ourselves.

I actually have my Google alert set to “controlling women.” So I get an email whenever that comes up in the media. And it’s so funny. I think I just got one yesterday. It’s always about a play that’s coming out, a movie, a book where there’s a fictional character who’s a controlling woman, but never anybody in real life, because we don’t say these things in real life. We would never call someone a controlling woman. Right?

I have often said that it was not marketing genius to write my very first book about a topic that no one claims for themselves and not a book you can give to anybody else. (laughter) You can. There is a gentle way to do this.

But control, it’s just this problem. Like, we can see it in other people, and they can see it in us, but we just don’t see it in ourselves. 

I was speaking on this topic once, and there was a woman in the audience with her adult daughter. And as I was talking, this woman leans over, and she’s, like, “Do you think I’m controlling?” 

Her daughter’s, like, “I do.” (laughter)

So, a little further into my talk, she leans over again, and she’s, like, “Really? You think I’m like that?” 

Her daughter’s, like, “Um huh. Yes. I do.”

And a third time, she leans over, and she’s, like, “Oh, come on. I’m not like that, am I?” 

Her daughter’s like, “You’re trying to control me right now, Mom.” (laughter)

So, it’s this problem we don’t see in ourselves. I did not see control as being my problem. If I had seen a book called Control Girl, I would have picked it up for somebody else, not for me.

Here’s what I did know: I knew I had anger issues. I did recognize that. I was reading books about anger. I was praying about my anger. It was very clear I had anger issues.

I remember driving one of my kids to soccer practice one day, and he told me in the back seat that he had forgotten his cleats. I just erupted, “I cannot believe it! We’re going to be late for the third time this week. That means you’re probably not going to start. I put them right by the door. I cannot believe this.”

And then about thirty seconds into my rant, I realized I had called my friend right before. She’s on the phone, and I’m, like, (in a weak voice) “Hello? I’m so sorry that you had to be aware of this.” This is not my anger. It was not something that I was proud of, definitely, and it’s not something I wanted anybody to know. But behind closed doors, I was an angry mom. I was an angry wife. I was slamming doors. I was uptight about all sorts of things because I was trying to make it all turn out right.

And then one day I was driving in the car, listening to a radio program, and someone was talking about surface-level sins in our lives that we see and we recognize, and how sometimes they’re tied to this deeper, underlying issue. And she mentioned the sin of control.

It was the first time I’d ever tied my anger to control. I thought, Well, that makes sense. I am erupting in anger. I’m mad about the things that I cannot control. And so I started asking myself this question when I felt the anger rising, I started asking, “Is there something I’m trying to control here? Or is there something I feel that I’m losing control of?” And more often than not, the answer was, “Yes.” I was trying to control it all. I was trying to white-knuckle my way, and I was getting mad because control kept slipping out of my grasp.

Now, there are some of you in this room who do not get angry. You do not yell at your kids. You have never slammed a door. And I tell you, “You are a mystery to me.” (laughter) I’ve always wanted to be a little more like you. But my friends who don’t struggle with anger, they tell me, “Oh no. For me, it’s not anger rising to the surface. For me it’s anxiety or fear.”

So this fear of what is out of my sight, out of my control, or this anxiety over the future that I cannot control.

Another one, if we think of these as little dashboard indicators of this deeper-under-the-hood problem of control, another one would be perfectionism. I think we try to grip down and make everything perfect all in a role because we think we can ensure some outcome that we’re after. 

So let me just take a quick inventory:

How many of you in the room would say anger is kind of more your thing? Loud and proud right there.

And then, how about anxiety/fear. Anybody?

Perfectionism? Okay.

All three? (laughter) Okay, got it.

So, here’s your assignment:

In the coming days or weeks, as you feel those negative emotions rising, ask yourself, “Is there something beneath the surface? Is this being fed by this deep unhealthy desire that I have to control it all?”

We’re going to talk about this struggle and why this clenched fist is not good for us. Why is it wrong to constantly . . . I mean, we see the negative effects of it. We don’t want those.

But also, “What’s really wrong with control in the first place?”

And to answer that question, we have to go back to the very first control girl. Her name is Eve, and her story, if you want to open her story, it’s Genesis, chapter 3. It says:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the other beasts in the field that the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You cannot eat of the trees of the garden’?”

And the woman said, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but God did say, ‘You shall not eat of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

And the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that it was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its food, and she ate it, and she gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together to make themselves loin cloths.” (vv. 1–7)

So, the thing I find interesting in that story first off is that this tree with the forbidden fruit, where is it placed? In the midst of the garden, in the middle. I wonder if it was where all the garden paths converged.

I think that’s interesting because when I didn’t want my little kids to have something dangerous, I didn’t put it in the middle of the room or in the middle of the table. Like, why in the middle? Why didn’t God make this fruit grow underground? Or ten feet up? Why not cover it with prickers or make it ugly? Right? It says the fruit was beautiful. Why would God let this fruit hang there beautiful in the sunlight?

I think the tree was posing a question. I think God was asking, “Will you live under My rule? As you enjoy this garden, will you live like it’s true, that I am God, and you are not?”

Adam and Eve were given dominion over all the earth. And yet, God knew that they would only flourish if they lived under His dominion.

And then, notice, that’s exactly what the serpent goes after. He goes after God’s dominion, God’s rule. He says, “God knows that if you eat it, you’re going to become like God, knowing what God knows, seeing what God sees.” And the implication is, “God doesn’t want you to be like Him. God wants to suppress you. God wants to keep you beneath Him”—as if that was a bad thing.

So the serpent is planting doubts. Like, “Can it possibly be good for you that God would keep before you and keep something from you?”

So, really, the question here is, “Is God good?” That’s the doubt that the enemy is planting. “Is God really good?”

When Eve reached out, and she took that fruit, she didn’t just break a rule. She rejected God’s rule. She didn’t just take some fruit. She took control.

And then what happened after she takes the fruit? Do you remember? She wanted her eyes to be opened, but what were her eyes opened to? What did she see? Nakedness. That’s interesting. 

I have a friend whose little boy came running up looking for his mom in the bedroom, and his daddy said, “Oh, Mommy is in the bathroom changing. You can’t go in there.”

And he said, “Well, why not?”

And his dad said, “Well, Mommy is naked. You can’t see a naked woman, not until you’re married.”

And the little boy said, “So when I get married, I can see Mommy when she’s naked?” (laughter)

But you were in that story. He doesn’t care who’s naked, who’s clothed. He’s just trying to find his mom. But one day his eyes will be opened, and he’ll know that it will be really wrong to walk in on his mom on purpose. Right? But he’ll also see the goodness of intimacy in marriage. 

The tree was called “The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” And this distinction between good and evil, it was only kept safe when it was kept from us. 

And so, yes, when they bit into this fruit, they did see something that they had never seen, but their eyes were not designed for it. It was, like, for me, with the naked eye, looking at a solar eclipse. I have never done that. I have never looked at a solar eclipse. I would be blind if I did. 

So, yes, they bit into something. They ate. They saw something they had never seen, but it blinded them. This is the point in redemptive history when we’ve stepped into the spiritual blindness. We look at things that God says are good. They don’t look good to us. We look at things that God says are bad. They don’t look bad to us.

They were blinded.

And then the next thing that happened is, remember Eve wanted to be like God? She already was like God. She already was created in His image. And now she’s far more unlike God because she has tasted sin, and God never has.

So the result is, they are cowering, covering themselves, shrinking back. They’re ashamed. They’re not looking real regal, are they?

So, this fruit that was so tempting, it actually poisoned them.

And then the next scene I think is just so telling of who God is because He comes looking for them in the garden. He does not come stomping angrily, like, “Did you eat that fruit?” He comes with questions, inviting confession. And the moment they say, “I ate,” the questions stop.

That’s when God rolls out the curses and the consequences over our world that we’re still living with. And God has a series of things that He says, but I want to lean in at something that God says to the woman as a result because I think it has something interesting to say about our problem with control.

So this is Genesis 3:16. First God talks about the pain of bearing children—and can we just give testimony that—man, there is pain associated. And not just the pain of delivering a child into the world, but the pain of mothering a child in this dark world. There is this burden.

So, Eve’s body, just looking at her body, we see that she was designed for relationship. She was designed to receive her husband, to nurture life. And both of these relationships are now going to have deep hurt associated.

First of all, she’s going to have pain in child bearing. And the next one has to do with her relationship with her husband. Genesis 3:16, God says to Eve:

Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. (NIV)

Your translation might read, “Contrary to your husband.” (ESV) But mine always read, “for,” and that never made sense to me. “Your desire will be for your husband.” I thought that was a sexual desire, and thought, Man, if women had more of that, their husbands would not think about the other consequence.

It didn’t make sense until I understood what that desire actually meant. It’s a desire for control. If we look at Genesis chapter 4, the very next chapter 4, verse 7, God is speaking to Cain, and He’s saying sin. Cain is contemplating killing his brother, and God says, “[Cain, sin, it’s] crouching at the door. [It’s like this animal. It’s ready to pounce.] It’s desire is for you, and you must rule over it.” (NKJV)

So, it wants to overcome you. It wants to control your life. And you must rise up and knock it down.

So, if we take that meaning from Genesis 4 back to this verse in Genesis 3:16, it’s like God is speaking to Eve and saying, “You’re going to have this desire. It’s going to make you like that pouncing or that crouching animal. You’re going to have this desire, and you’re going to want to rise up and overpower your husband. That desire is now in you, and he, in turn, is going to rise up and knock you down.”

This is the battle of the sexes. It all began here as a consequence to eating that fruit, to reaching out and taking control.

Ray Ortlund says that he sees there is a measure for measure response where Eve takes control, and God allows her to become controlling.

I remember the day when I first heard a sermon about this verse, and I first started understanding what that meant—this desire for control. I remember I was painting the laundry room and listening to a sermon by John Piper, which I guess is what you do when you’re painting the laundry room.

And he’s talking about this verse. I remember him explaining, like, as a daughter of Eve, I’m going to have this desire to control that man in the other room. I remember just being stunned on the side of my ladder with paint dripping off my paintbrush. No wonder I am this way!

I mean, I love that man over there. But I emasculate him. I try to overpower him. I talk over him. I’m disrespectful. I undermine him. No wonder, I, as a wife, I am living out this consequence in my marriage.

Are you a control girl? To some extent, I can answer that with this verse because you, too, have been infected with the consequence. You, too, are a daughter of Eve.

And when I understood that verse, when I understood what was going on in Genesis 3:16, I went to my Bible looking for other control girls. I thought, Well, if they, too, are daughters of Eve, maybe I can look at their stories, and maybe there are other women who are trying to take control, and I can learn lessons from them, things to avoid.

And, you know what? I started at the beginning, and I didn’t have to look very far. They were on every page! Every page! Ultimately, that Bible study became my book, Control Girl: Lessons on Surrendering Your Burden of Control from Seven Women in the Bible. And those seven women that I studied were: Eve, Sarah, Hagar, Rebekah, Leah, Rachel, Miriam. We could have found more, but there was no more room in the book.

What I noticed in the lives of these women is that they were doing what I do. They were reaching out. They were clamping down. They were trying to grip on to control. They were trying to make it all work out according to their perspective. And they were making everybody miserable in the process.

And so, what can we do? We have this consequence. What can we do?

The message of the Bible is not, “Well, control your control problem.” (laughter) The message of the Bible is not, “Do more. Try harder.” That is not the message. We cannot in our own strength overcome these consequences. Can we? I have tried. I cannot.

But there is One who can. There is One who has come to conquer our problem with sin. I love that in just the verse just before God gives Eve this consequence, God says, when He gives the process, that, “The seed of the woman will one day crush the head of the serpent.”

That’s the answer to our problem. And you know what I think is really interesting? We know that seed to be Jesus. What’s interesting is, in order to crush the power of evil, our Jesus had to be crushed. He had to give up control.

So, look at the contrast in these two stories:

Eve, in the Garden of Eden, she saw a tree that looked very, very good to her. But Jesus, in a different garden, in the Garden of Eden, saw a tree that looked very, very bad to Him. It wasn’t a beautiful, lush tree. It was a dead, ugly tree. And, do you remember Jesus in that garden, do you remember how He was down on His knees. He knew the cross was before Him. He’s on His knees. And He’s crying out “in deep agony.” The Bible says that His sweat was like great drops of blood.

And what did Jesus say? He said, “Father, if it’s possible, let this cup pass from Me.” Jesus did not relish the idea of drinking down God’s wrath for our sin. “If it’s possible, let this cup pass . . . nevertheless, not My will, but Yours be done.”

Do you hear the surrender in that verse? Do you hear the surrender? And do you see the contrast in these two stories?

You see, Eve saw a tree that looked very, very good to her. Jesus saw a tree that looked very, very bad to Him.

Eve took the fruit and took control. Jesus took the nails. He gave up control.

Eve said, “My will be done.” Jesus said, “Thy will be done.”

Do you see the contrast in these stories?

Jesus died on that cross, and they put Him in a grave, but He rose up to new life. This is the only reason that you and I have new life available to us. This is the only reason that we don’t have to live these consequences of Eve. We don’t have to be control girls.

I think we do all start out life kind of reaching for whatever fruit looks good to us, living Eve’s story. Like, progressively getting more and more controlling. Do we not? I think all of us start out rejecting God’s rule in our lives.

And then there is this moment when our Jesus comes to us. He doesn’t come stomping through the garden saying, “Did you eat that fruit?” No. He comes. He knows what we did. He comes to us, and He says, “Aren’t you burdened? Aren’t you exhausted trying to control it all? Aren’t you tired trying to be god in your life? Won’t you turn in repentance? Won’t you turn?”

That’s God’s original intention in the Garden. From the beginning, God wanted them to know that, yes, they had dominion over the world, but they need to live under His dominion. He is God, and they were not.

So this is what Jesus invites us to. Like, turning from Eve’s story to back to God and saying, “You are God. I am not.” It’s the story of surrender.

Have you had a moment like that in your life? Have you had a moment where Jesus turned you back to God. . .where you are off, plucking whatever fruit looks good to you, and Jesus turned your life in a new direction?

If not, don’t delay. Don’t delay. Because if we live our entire lives rejecting God’s rule, saying, “I don’t need You. I don’t want You in my life. I’m fine on my own,” and we step through death’s door, there’s no turning back. That is the very, very bad news.

The good news is that, in Jesus, we can turn, and we can have new life. Jesus invites you to not just a decision, but a new way of life.

Jesus invites you to go from living Eve’s story of control, “My will be done,” to living Jesus’ story of surrender, “Thy will be done.”

He invites us to have this transformation in our lives. As daughters of Eve, we will naturally live out this story of control. We will. As daughters of God, we can supernaturally live this story of surrender.

So, what I want to do, I want to get kind of practical with you all. Okay? I want to talk about, “What does this, living this story of surrender, what does it look like?”

I want to kind of glance back at Eve’s story, and I want to give you three ways to live a story of surrender, a story that says, “Thy will be done, not my will be done.” And, these are ways that we can live a life that proclaims to the world that Heaven Rules.

So first of all, we let God decide what is good and what is bad. This tree, it was called “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” And God kept it from them. You know the first thing that I see in that part of the story? Apparently God thinks limits are good.

In this perfect environment, in the Garden, there was a limit. One tree—it was off limits. So apparently God believes that it is good for us to live with limits.

As a control girl, I do not like limits. I want to eat whatever I want to eat. I want to watch whatever I want to watch. I want to drink as much as I want. I want to buy as much as I want. I never want to put this thing down. I don’t really enjoy limits as a control girl. But, we either cave into our control girl selves, or we cave into God. We live lives of surrender.

So, take food, for instance. Anybody else struggle with food? We have some workshops on food. I was in one of them. So good. Erin Davis was talking about food, and Asheritah. And, really, what they’re inviting us to is a life of surrender.

Putting your fork down. If you were to do that 462 times in a row, do you think that might have potential to change you, to live with limits?

God has put limits into our lives. There are twenty-fou hours in a day. There are 100 cents—everybody gets 100 cents to each dollar. Everybody gets 300 calories to a donut. (laughter) I think it’s really interesting, the fall of mankind hinged on a woman and her afternoon snack. (laughter) She was not willing to live within the limits.

And so the first way to live like this is true, live this story of surrender, is just to recognize, like, limits are good. Limits are good. Food is a really big area for me, but also, TV, playing on my phone, shopping . . . all of these different ways, living like it’s true, that limits are good. God is for me when He keeps something from me.

Limits are good in general, but there are some things that God has put completely off limits. This tree was off limits. God said, “Don’t eat it. It’s not good for you. You will die.” It was completely off limits.

Genesis 3:6 says, “When [she] saw that the fruit was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes.” Do you see there that Eve is calling this fruit “good”? God has called it “not good” for her. Bad for her. Stay away from it. Don’t eat it. And Eve is calling it “good.”

Genesis 1, we see God proclaiming that “this is good, that good, this is good.” And now we have little Eve, who’s been alive for, what, I don’t know, fifteen minutes? (laughter) And suddenly she feels like she’s in a position where she can say, “Oh, it looks good to me. I’m going to call it good.”

And that’s what we do. Isn’t it?

I remember talking to a friend who was getting divorced. I expressed some concern. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

She goes, “Oh, no. This is a good thing. This is a really good thing. You know, we got married young. We have grown apart. Our lives are so separate from each other.”

He confided to her that he was miserable in their marriage. She had been holding onto him. Like, how could she hold him hostage? She was setting him free. They were already dating other people. “It was good,” she told me.

But, you see, the question isn’t whether we think something is good. It’s whether God thinks something is good. Remember, He is God. We are not. That’s what He’s trying to teach us with these limits that He puts in our lives. These things that are off limits for us.

So, what’s the forbidden fruit that’s looking good to you right now?

Maybe it is divorce.

Maybe it’s just a tired marriage.

Maybe it’s somebody else’s husband who looks good to you. There’s this temptation for an affair. 

Maybe you’re dating an unbeliever. You think, He’s so good. There’s nothing wrong. And yet, he’s going to take you away from Jesus.

What if you have same-sex attraction?

What if it’s pornography or masturbation. You think, It’s not hurting anybody. It seems like a good way to deal with these desires.

The question isn’t whether I think it’s good. The question is, “What does God say is good?”

If you want to be a woman who is living in sweet surrender, not living Eve’s story, but living Jesus’ story, you have to decide: “Am I going to reach out and take that forbidden fruit?” Because, when you bite into that, are you not taking control? And when you let it go, are you not saying, “Heaven rules”?

We each have opportunities every day to live this story of surrender.

I love what I heard Laura Perry Smaltz say. She lived for years as a man. God created her as a woman. And she said that, being a part of the Revive Our Hearts’ ministry, she knew that it was right for her to become a woman. But now God is opening her eyes. It is GOOD to be the woman that God designed for her to be.

Are you going to live this story of surrender? Or are you going to live Eve’s control girl story?

The second way that we can live a story of surrender is inviting our husbands to lead. Inviting our husbands to lead. You might think, Well, what does Heaven rules have to do with my husband?

Actually, do you know God created your husband to be the leader? We see that pattern in Eve’s story.

If you haven’t read Divine Design: True Woman 101, by Nancy Wolgemuth and Mary Kassian, it is just a beautiful book about God’s design for women. In that book, they take us step by step and show us that God created Adam to be the leader.

First of all, God created him first, out of the ground. And then, remember God created Eve from his rib. He created Eve from Adam, for Adam. God gave Adam the instructions about this tree before Eve was even created.

And then after they ate the fruit, God came looking for, not Eve, but Adam. Look who God approaches in Genesis 3:9. It says “God called to the man, asking, ‘Where are you’?”

God held Adam accountable. So, clearly, Adam is the leader. But look at who the serpent approaches. Did you notice that?

In the first verse: “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast in the field that the Lord God had made, and he said to the woman . . .” He didn’t go to the man.

Whatever order God has put in place, Satan wants to disorder. He wants to undermine. And so he approaches Eve about this one restriction. About this very important spiritual decision for her family. Eve and the serpent have this conversation, and Eve goes ahead and takes the leadership role. She decides. Right?

I wonder what would have happened if she had turned to Adam. But did you notice, it says he was right there beside her as this interaction was going? Verse 6: “She gave some to her husband who was with her.”

What would have happened if she had turned to him and said, “Well, what do you think? Like, let’s talk about this before I eat this fruit.” 

And Adam, God gave him the responsibility to work and keep the garden. He was the keeper. He was the protector. He was supposed to guard against invaders. There is an evil, insidious snake who has entered the garden.

And what we want Adam to do is, “STOP, EVE!” And get between her and the serpent. But he’s passive. He just lets this happen. He lets this story play out. He doesn’t rise up as the leader.

You know, what I see in this story is the temptation for wives to take control and the temptation for husbands to let them do it.

When my boys were little, I remember going out for dinner with my mom and my cousins. A cousin was in from out of town, and all the girls went out to dinner. We came back to my house because they wanted to see my two little boys. And when we got there, my husband said, “They’re already in bed.”

I could hear them upstairs crying in their bedrooms, like, “Waaa, I want to see Mom!” He’s, like, “No. They’re going to stay in bed.”

And I’m, like, “Honey. I mean, I’ve got this little crowd of women who are delighted in these little boys. They want to see them.”

And he said, “Look, the boy broke, I think, all ten of the commandments tonight.” (laughter) Maybe not the one about adultery. (laughter) But he’s like, “They broke all of them. I put them in bed, and that is where they are staying.”

And I said to him, (whisper voice), “Can I talk to you a minute?”

So we go up, and we step into an empty bedroom, and I bet you have an idea of what words I was already formulating in my mouth, but before I could even say a word, do you know what my husband said to me? “Are you going to overrule me? Are you going to overrule me?”

Whew! Well, that puts it into perspective. Right? Submission is only submission when we disagree. There’s no call for submission when we agree. Submission is only submission when we disagree, and I clearly disagreed with my husband.

But this is one of those times when I invited my husband to lead. I remember stepping out of that bedroom, and looking down at the bottom of the stairs at my little crowd of dear women and saying, “The boys are going to stay in bed.” It was really hard—it was really hard.

But it was good for little boys to see their mom respect their dad’s leadership. And I want to tell you, those little boys grew up to be big teenage boys, bigger-than-me boys, and it’s really good that their dad has been involved in parenting with them. It’s so good that our husbands be leaders in our family.

I think that some of you, though, you might be thinking, Well, that’s really nice. I would love it if my husband would take the lead. I would love that. He doesn’t say anything. He would just let my kids stay up all night. He wouldn’t even put them to bed. Or whatever. You see this passivity in your husband.

And so, again, I think there is temptation for women to take control. There’s temptation for husbands to let them have it. And we have to invite our husbands. We have to be women who say, “Hey, what do you think? What do you think about this fruit? Should we eat it or not?”

We have to invite our husbands. I’ll give you an example from more recently where I invited my husband to lead. I don’t always do this perfectly, but we were on our way to have lunch with one of our kids.

I said to my husband, “Hey, you remember those questions that our friend Darrell suggested asking our son? Are you going to do those over lunch? Are you going to use these questions?”

And my husband said, “Oh, Shannon, you always have an agenda. You’re always trying to insert these . . . you always have an idea of how this is supposed to go.” And it’s true. I do.

When my kids were little, there were just little things I wanted to control. Now that I have big kids, there’s just big things I want to control in their lives. And I did. I had an agenda. Guilty as charged.

He says I’m so pushy. And so my response to him in that moment was, “I receive that. You are right. I do.”

Here’s what inviting him to lead looked like: “I will receive that. I will do whatever you say, whatever you decide, I will support you. I just wanted you to remember about those questions and just wanted to see if maybe this would be your time.”

And do you know what he said to me? “What were those questions again?” (laughter)

And, you know what? I don’t see any problem at all with me, as his wife, reminding him about those questions. I’m the relational one in our marriage. I love our relationship. And I want to help support him as the leader. There’s nothing wrong with me saying, “Remember those questions?”

There is something wrong with me saying, “No, you will ask those questions, or I will if you don’t.”

Inviting my husband to lead looks like saying, “Hey, I will support you regardless.” That is so key. If your husband doesn’t feel that you’re going to support him regardless, he knows he’s not the leader, and he’s not going to lead.

And so, he actually did ask those questions, and it was a really fruitful conversation.

Is it hard for you, though? Is that hard for you? It’s so hard for me . . . because he’s doing it wrong! (laughter) Right? So many times I feel that he’s doing it wrong.

But, you know what? If I will invite him to lead and support his leadership, what if I do that on fifty-seven parenting situations in a row? Does that have potential to change me? It does.

To respect God’s design for my family, inviting my husband to lead. By the way, if you are not a wife, you can still invite husbands to lead. One of the most powerful things that my friends say to me when they’re trying to invite my husband’s leadership is, “What does Ken think about that? What does Ken think about that?”

If you are not a wife, you can be the kind like . . . What if you’re in that little group of women at the bottom of the stairs. Are you going to roll your eyes, like, “Aw, there he goes again, not letting me see my little nephew.” Or can you be, like, “You know what? Let’s respect your husband's decision.” You can be also a friend to invite your friend’s husband to lead.

So, wives: have you been taking the lead in your family? Have you been doing that your way? How is God asking you to surrender to this design?

This creation story with Adam and Eve, it’s God’s story. Are you going to surrender? Or are you going to live out Eve’s story? How is God asking you to invite your husband to lead?

So, our first way to live this story of surrender is letting God decide what’s good and what’s bad. The second is inviting husbands to lead. And the third is trusting God’s wisdom, not my own.

In Genesis 3:6, it says, “When the woman saw that the tree was to be desired to make one wise.” Wise. She didn’t just want the fruit. I mean, she wanted the fruit. It looked good. But she wanted what the fruit could give her—wisdom.

Wisdom is all about making the right decisions. If you’re a wise person, you make all the right decisions, and they’re all going to lead to the right happy ending. Yes?

If there was some fruit that you could go buy, and you could purchase this fruit, and you could eat the fruit, and it could make you make all the right decisions, and you could have the happy ending, would you choose that fruit over God? Hey, that’s a question.

Would you choose the fruit over God? And that’s really what Eve was doing. She wanted to be like God. She didn’t want to be under God. She wanted to be like God. She wanted to know for herself, knowing good and evil, she wanted to know what God knows. She wanted to see what God sees. She wanted to be wise because she wanted to create her own happy ending that didn’t involve trusting in God.

Do you see this in your heart? I sure see this in mine. So many of the little things that I am trying to control in the moment, they have to do with something further out—some happy ending that I have already formulated, and I’m just trying to resolve the contingencies to get us there. Can you relate to that?

Eve wanted this fruit because she wanted what it would give her. But, you know what? Proverbs 3:5–6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” 

The times I have that are the hardest with trusting God for His wisdom not my own are when things aren’t going very well. I remember when one of my kids was in Middle School, looking at a list on the internet of alarming behaviors, and my child had a bunch of those things on that list.

And one of the things on the list I noticed he was isolating himself. Like, I heard that at lunch he was no longer eating in the cafeteria. He went to the library to eat lunch. This was alarming. This list was alarming. And I am a control girl mama, and I’m, like, rolling up my sleeves, (sounds of fist punching into the other fist) like, “Okay, we’re going to take care of this problem.”

I was reading books, and I was finding information, and we were on a new diet, and we were doing all of the things. And here I am, I’m trying to manage all of the contingencies. I’ve got this idea of the happy ending in my mind.

One of the things that we did in response was we took our son, and we put him in a new school. It was a small Christian school, and I thought it was going so well. I thought I had fixed it all. I thought, Ooo, I’m doing good. I’ve taken control here. I went to drop off a lunch for my son. I went into the cafeteria—it was a pretty small school. I said to one of the kids, I said, “Hey, do you know where my son is?”

And she said, “Oh, he always eats in the library.”

And my heart sank. I thought, Oh, it is not all fixed.

So it was a dark, cloudy time, a stormy time in my life and in my family’s life. But you know what I think? During that time, what God was teaching me is, there is no formula to create the happy ending for my family. God wanted me to trust His wisdom, not mine. What He said was good. Not what I thought was good.

And this time, I tell you, that storm lasted for quite a bit, but that time of relying on God’s wisdom, not my wisdom, it had more transformational power in that short period of my life than anything else, any other period in my life.

If you’re going through a situation where your heart is breaking, things aren’t going well, I know what you want to do. You want to reach out and take control. You want to get it all back on track. But God thinks it is best for you to trust in His wisdom and not on your own.

When you trust in yourself, you just become anxious, angry, perfectionist. You’re like the mom exploding or slamming doors or melting in fear, anxious, pacing the floor. This is what it looks like when I try to trust in my wisdom and take control of every little thing. But when I trust in God’s wisdom, there is peace. There is security. There is joy even in the darkest moments.

What is the situation in your life where you need wisdom? What’s that place in your life where it’s all kind of unraveling? Are you trusting in your own wisdom? Are you trying to roll your sleeves up and get everythingback on track? That’s our first inclination as control girls, isn’t it?

But laboring over these decisions and being stuck in perfectionism—this is not going to lead to good fruit in your life or good outcomes. How is God inviting you to trust in His wisdom and not your own?

So, ladies, you have a choice: you can either live Eve’s story, plucking whatever fruit looks good to you, taking over for your husband, trusting in your own wisdom—not needing God, rejecting His rules, just isolating yourself from God. Or you can live like Jesus. Picture Jesus in that garden, bent over. He was God, and yet He was living this beautiful surrender. He wasn’t saying, “My will be done.” He was saying, “Thy will be done.”

I want you to just hold your hand out like this in front of you. And in your hand, I want you to just put that thing that you would most like to control. I want you to grip your hand really tight, because this is what we want to do as control girls, right?

Maybe it’s some forbidden fruit that you want to take. Or maybe it’s a husband that you would really like to control, or another family member. Maybe it’s something out of your control.

Whatever it is, just grip your hand tightly. In a moment I’m going to pray, and then invite you to do something with your hand. I’m going to invite you to just open your fingers, because when you open your hand, when you open yourself to God and surrender, this has the power to change you. But it’s also the posture to receive all that He has for you.

Let’s pray. Jesus, You know what is in my hand. You know the great desire that I have to control it all. You know that I am an angry, anxious, perfectionistic woman when I am trying to make it all turn out right. God, I want to just open my fingers so the white knuckles, that clamp that I have on controlling . . . I’m just opening my hands before You.

And as my sisters do the same, God, we’re just asking: would You help us to recognize that You are in control, which means we don’t have to be. You reign over this world. And we flourish when we live like that’s true.

God, I pray that in the moments and the days and the months to come, that we would stop this silly thing of trying to prove that we are in control or trying to take control. But, Lord, help us to live like it’s true, that You are the One who is in control.

Father, as we open our hand, we’re waiting on You—like Joni taught us last night. We’re waiting on Your promises. We’re relying on You to hold us fast when everything feels out of control. God, would You hold my sisters fast? I don’t know what they’re facing—troubled marriages, troubled parenting situations, intense desires for forbidden fruit. I don’t know what it is in their lives, but You do.

And, Lord, we just open our hands in surrender to You, waiting on You, trusting. Lord, help us to live like it’s true, that Heaven rules. Help us to put our hope and our trust in You. In Jesus’ precious name I pray, amen.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV unless otherwise noted.