Then, I quietly slipped off into a room with a Bible, just to prove to myself that I was right—so that I could then go back and prove to them that I was right. Because if I’m right, then I will feel like I’m in control again; controlling the conversation; controlling the subject matter; in control of the people who should know better than to challenge a pastor about what’s in the Bible. I turned to the story of Saul in 1 Samuel 10, and there it was. King Saul, hiding himself in the baggage because he did not want to be king (1 Samuel 10:22).
It’s humbling to eat crow with your six year old regarding your supposed area of expertise. But that’s what I ended up doing.
Tentatively, I apologized and changed the subject.
Controlling From the Dinner Table to the Street
But that’s not all. Recently, I was driving on a gorgeous fall day in Nashville. The leaves were changing color, the sun was shining, the air was at seventy-five degrees, and the top of my Jeep was down. But I missed all the beauty around me because I got fixated on a Corvette in front of me, not because the Corvette was a beautiful car (it was), but because the driver was going five miles per hour below the speed limit.
The nerve! Because I prefer to go five miles per hour above the speed limit, I got up close to his rear bumper, making hand gestures to let me pass, cursing the day that the slow-moving Corvette was manufactured and wishing a Yugo or Chevy Vega on its driver.
The comedian George Carlin said that there are two kinds of drivers on the road—the idiots and the maniacs. The idiots drive slower than you do, and the maniacs drive faster. By this definition, I am the maniac treating the Corvette driver like he is an idiot. Because just like I must have control over a conversation about the Bible, I must also have control of the road.
Gulp. Lord, why do I have to be this way? Why does my impulse have to be frustration and anger with others when they aren’t doing it right? And by “doing it right,” I mean centering their world around me and treating me like God. Wretched man that I am…
Having big feelings about small things, and then dumping those feelings on others. Trying to control conversations, and control traffic and such. That’s what we Type A controllers become when we don’t address our inner desire to lord over everything and everyone around us. That’s what happens when we become right in our own eyes, and then impose our rightness onto others.
When we become these people, it backfires. In an effort to be controlling, we lose control. In an effort to make people better according to our definition of better, we make people feel worse.
My Own Worst Enemy
In the alarmingly appropriate words of Pink:
I’m a hazard to myself. Don’t let me get me.
And please, don’t let me get you. If I hurt you, I want you tell me, even if you are my daughter. Especially if you are my daughter, or a slow Corvette driver, or anyone else whose spirit has the potential to be crushed by my Type A-ness.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend who show me a mirror, who praise the good in me but who also point out what’s hurtful in me, because such wounds are surgical not punitive. Such wounds are restorative not insulting. They call me away from the Hitler within and toward the Jesus within.
Thank God for honest family members, friends, colleagues, and even strangers. Thank God for you, Mr. Slow Corvette Driver, for continuing to drive slow, and in so doing remind me of the Type-A, driven and hurtful maniac that have the potential to be.
I want to apologize when I need to apologize.
And God knows, I want to change when I need to change.
This article originally appeared here.
