Sitting in Verse 36: Control and Its Grip

I have been sitting in 1 Samuel 2:36 now for about 4 weeks. I’ve done 3 podcast episodes on this one verse, and I am still struggling with it.

For the past few months, I’ve really been living these verses—learning them, living them, and then leaving them.

But this one?

This one has a tight grip on me.

Why?

Because control has a tight grip on me.

I didn’t understand the magnitude of my control issues.

Now I do.

And IT. IS. SERIOUS.

I didn’t realize that I used control to feel safe.
To feel safe, I needed everything in my life to be in its place. If I could physically see that everything was where it “should” be, I felt better.

I didn’t even know that about myself.

I’m not sure if I was like this as a child, but as an adult? I took it to a whole different level.

I used to travel for work and be gone all week.

I had no idea until my partner told me that my family would scramble to put everything back in place before I walked through the door… because I would have a reaction.

And I would.

I could tell when something was out of place.

We called it OCD.

But for me, it wasn’t OCD.

It was control.

And I’ve been working on this for about 4 weeks now.

And honestly? I feel like God saved this one for last.

Because I really thought I had control handled.

In my eyes, I did.

But then God showed me—from a God-level perspective—how much control was still running my life.

And I had one of those moments like:

“Oh…
Yeah…
I didn’t do as much work as I thought I did.”

What I realized is this:

A lot of what I thought I had “healed” was just hidden.

Because you can’t control what isn’t there.

If I’m the only one in the room, control is easy.

So what did God do?

Put me back in a room with people.

And showed me exactly where I was still at.

Insert eye roll here.

1 Samuel 2:36 says:

“Then everyone left in your family line will come and bow down before him for a piece of silver and a loaf of bread and plead, ‘Appoint me to some priestly office so I can have food to eat.’”

For me, that’s my control.

Trying to come back.

Begging to be appointed again so it can have something to “feed” on.

And I am fighting it tooth and nail.

It’s not that I want to be controlling.

It’s that control is how I learned to feel safe.

And now I’m asking myself:

What happened to me that made me feel this unsafe?

Do we all feel this way?

I’m not going back through all my trauma here—if you want that, you can listen to my podcast (Holy Chuckles).

But what I can say is this:

I feel like I’ve carried a sense of being unsafe in my body for as long as I can remember.

So for me, safety looked like:

• being accepted
• knowing where everything is
• having control over my environment

That’s how I functioned.

And yes—I almost said “survived.”

But I’m not in the jungle.

I wasn’t surviving.

I was functioning.

And to function, I needed control.

And now?

Now I’m being asked to let it go.

How do you let go of something that’s been part of you for 50 years?

It feels like asking me to remove my right arm… and still open doors the same way.

You can’t.

You have to learn a new way.

That’s what I’m doing.

Learning how to function in this new version of me.

Some days I do really well.

Other days?

I’m exhausted.
I’m frustrated.
I hate it.

There are days I go to God and say:

“I can’t.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I’m ready to come home.”

And those are the days God reminds me:

He is strong when I am weak.

Control, for me, is like a drug.

And I’m addicted.

So letting it go means admitting that… and working on it every single day.

Some days I do great.

Other days, I feel like I’m back at step one.

Reminding myself:

If I’m in control… I’m not aligned with God.

And that’s the key for me.

More than anything, I want to be aligned with God.

But alignment means co-creating—not running the whole thing myself.

It means I’m not the CEO anymore.

God is.

I’m the COO.

And I’ll be honest—that’s hard.

Because I’ve been the CEO of my life for 50 years.

Letting God take the reins feels like a trust fall.

And I don’t do well with trust falls.

I remember getting dropped as a kid.

So yeah… this is not my comfort zone.

Learning to “let go and let God” feels like wrestling a toddler who doesn’t want to go to bed.

Actually, that reminds me of a story.

My brother told me about my nephew when he was little—he had endless energy. Just go, go, go all day.

And when it was time for bed?

He wouldn’t stop.

So my brother would pick him up, wrap his arms around him, and just hold him tight.

And eventually… he’d knock out

That’s me right now.

God is holding me while I’m still trying to “go.”

And eventually, I surrender.

And then the next day?

I wake up like:

“…but what if I just try this one thing?”

And I can just picture God like:

“Okay… go ahead.
I’ll be right here when you’re done.”

God is so patient with me.

Because just like in this verse—
my control keeps coming back, begging for authority.

And every day, I have to choose:

Am I giving it authority?

Or am I handing that over to God?

This is a daily choice.

To surrender.

To trust.

To stay aligned with something bigger than me—something that sees what I can’t.

Logically, it makes sense.

But physically?

My nervous system is still catching up.

Because for years, control is what told my body it was safe.

So now, every day is about loosening that grip just a little more.

Not perfection.

Just progress.

Being a little better today than I was yesterday.

And really… isn’t that what God wants?

Growth.

Just… growth.