The Idol of Control

The Idol of Control

Introduction:

Control rarely looks sinful. It looks like planning well, being disciplined, being responsible. In a country like ours, control often feels less like pride and more like wisdom. When policies shift without warning, when salaries delay, when businesses close because of one economic change, when inflation eats into savings, it feels naïve not to secure yourself.

So we plan. We save. We build networks. We diversify income. We create backup plans for our backup plans. We do not call that idolatry. We call it maturity.

And who can blame us? When you’ve been disappointed by systems—when what was promised didn’t arrive, when what was certain became uncertain—control feels less like sin and more like survival. It feels like faithfulness.

But Scripture asks a deeper question: not whether you have a plan, but whom you rely on.

When Reliance Quietly Shifts

Too long, please open your Bible 2 Chronicles 14: 1-11; 16: 1-12

King Asa in 2 Chronicles 14 once prayed, “Lord, there is none like You to help… We rely on You.” And God delivered him from a massive Ethiopian army—one million men and three hundred chariots—with nothing but trust. Asa and Judah were vastly outnumbered. But God gave them victory.

Years later, another threat arose. This time, Asa did not pray. He secured a political alliance with the king of Syria, using silver and gold from the temple treasury. It worked. The threat disappeared. The strategy succeeded.

But then came the prophet. Not to celebrate the victory, but to grieve it: “Because you relied on the king of Syria and did not rely on the Lord your God…”

The issue was not diplomacy. It was reliance.

And here is the uncomfortable truth we must face: control often delivers results. The bribe may get the contract. The connection may secure the visa. The extra hustle may cover the rent. The emergency savings may calm the panic. Asa’s alliance worked. But it cost him something invisible—the slow formation of his soul away from dependence on God.

What God rebuked was not the outcome, but the orientation. Asa moved from “We rely on You” to “I will secure this myself.” That shift—from reliance to self-reliance—is the birthplace of the idol.

The Rich Fool: When Gratitude Turns Into Assumption

Too long, please open your Bible Luke 12: 13-31

Jesus tells the parable of a rich man whose land produced abundantly. Instead of gratitude, there was calculation. Instead of worship, there was expansion. The man said to himself, “What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?” Then he said, “I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’”

Notice the pronouns. “I will… I will… my soul… my grain… my goods.” He is the subject of every sentence. There is no gratitude. No acknowledgment. Just expansion and assumption.

God called him a fool. Not because saving is evil. Not because planning is wrong. But because he assumed security without dependence. He believed the barns could protect what only God sustains.

The shift from gratitude to assumption is the moment control becomes idolatry. When we stop receiving our lives and start guaranteeing them, we have quietly enthroned ourselves.

Planning Is Not the Problem — Posture Is

We must be careful here. This is not a call to passivity. Scripture is not anti-planning.

Too long, please open your Bible Luke 14: 28-32
Commit your works to Yahweh And your plans will be established. Proverbs 16:3
Too long, please open your Bible Proverbs 6: 6-11

Joseph stored grain wisely in Egypt. Proverbs praises diligence. The ant prepares in summer. Preparation is not rebellion.

Here is the distinction: planning joined to trust is wisdom. Planning detached from trust becomes idolatry.

You can save money for your children’s school fees and hold those savings with open hands, knowing God may redirect them. You can take out insurance and still recognize that your security is not in the policy, but in the One who holds your life. You can build a business plan and pray, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” The difference is not in the action. It is in the posture.

The Danger of Presumption

Too long, please open your Bible James 4: 13-16

The apostle James speaks directly into this tension. He addresses believers who speak confidently about tomorrow’s profit: “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and trade and make a profit.” It sounds responsible. It sounds ambitious. It sounds like the language of people who are thinking ahead.

James is not rebuking ambition. He is rebuking arrogance dressed as ambition.

“You do not know what tomorrow will bring,” he says. “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’”

The problem is not planning. The problem is presumption—assuming control over tomorrow as though it belongs to us.

Scripture commends plans made with open hands. Preparation joined to prayer. Diligence rooted in dependence.

Trust in Yahweh with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3: 5-6

Training Dependence

“And He humbled you and let you be hungry and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh. “Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. Deuteronomy 8: 3-4

In Deuteronomy 8, God led Israel through the wilderness and let them hunger. Not to punish them, but to teach them. “He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna… in order to make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

Hunger exposes dependence. It retrains the heart. When you cannot guarantee tomorrow’s meal, you learn to receive today’s provision as a gift. You learn that life is not controlled—it is sustained. Not by your planning, but by the word of God.

This is why God gave them manna daily. Not monthly. Not annually. Daily. Because He was forming them into a people who trusted Him each morning. A people who knew that survival was not in their hands.

Jesus: The True King Who Trusted

Too long, please open your Bible Matthew 4: 1-11

Then came Jesus.

In Matthew 4, after forty days of fasting, the devil said, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” Jesus could have done it. He had the power. But the temptation was not merely about hunger. It was about securing Himself without waiting on the Father. It was about guaranteeing provision without trust.

Jesus answered with the very words from Deuteronomy: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

The second temptation invited Him to throw Himself down from the temple and force God’s protection. Secure Yourself. Prove it. Remove the uncertainty.

Again, Jesus refused. “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

The third temptation offered Him the kingdoms of the world without the cross. Glory without obedience. Power without surrender. Control without trust.

Jesus refused.

Where Asa drifted, Jesus remained dependent. Where the rich fool assumed tomorrow, Jesus entrusted Himself to the Father. Where we grasp for certainty, He walked by faith.

From Control to Walking With God

Control trains us to guarantee outcomes. It whispers that wisdom means securing every possibility. It tells us that maturity is eliminating risk.

But walking with God is different.

Walking with God does not mean abandoning responsibility. It means holding responsibility with humility. It means making plans while confessing, “If the Lord wills.” It means saving, building, working—and still knowing that your life is not in your hands.

Control says we must secure ourselves. Walking with God teaches us to receive ourselves as gifts.

Control demands certainty. Walking with God forms faithfulness.

Control tries to guarantee tomorrow. Walking with God trusts the One who already holds it.

As we enter this season of Lent, we are not rejecting wisdom. We are laying down the illusion of sovereignty. We are stepping away from the exhausting burden of managing every outcome. We are remembering that we are creatures again.

We are not managers of our destiny. We are children in the hands of a faithful Father.

For the next six weeks, we begin a journey called Walking With God—learning to pray as children, to receive daily bread instead of hoarding tomorrow, to be led by the Spirit instead of driven by fear, and to trust the Father even when the path ahead is not fully visible.

Not controlling the road, but trusting the One who goes before us.