“to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Luke 1:79
In our last post we saw that most of the characters in the Christmas story are guided by angels. One individual is a glaring exception. His determination to control others so hardened him that he was willing to kill babies to get what he wanted. Of course, I’m speaking of Herod, the puppet king of Israel.
At first he tries to control the three wisemen with deceit. They’ve come to worship the newborn “king of the Jews.” So Herod says to them, “When you find him, come back and tell me so I can worship him too.” After being guided by God in a dream, the wisemen take another route back to their land. Herod goes ballistic and orders all male children under two to be killed. Herod’s reputation for ruthless power caused Caesar Augustus to quip that it was safer to be Herod’s pig than his son. Anything to stay in control.
Although Herod is a particularly evil example, the desire to control others to get what we want appears to be a universal human capacity. My experience working in a program called WrapAround made me sensitive to this. In WrapAround we help individuals with complex needs achieve a better life with the support of a caring team. We sometimes find that when we try to get participants to articulate what that better life looks like for them, someone else tries to interfere. Often, it can be with the best of motives, a family member who cares for the participant and is “only trying to help.” No matter how good our intentions, however, crowding out the individual’s free will sends the message, “I know what’s best for you.” The person being “helped” feels devalued. Their inner life has been infringed upon.
WrapAround, and life more generally, only works well when we are free to make our own decisions. In one of our wraps the facilitator was getting frustrated because the young man would never do what he said he would do. I agreed to sit in on the next meeting in a coaching capacity. However, when I did, he had done everything he had committed to in the previous meeting. His diligence took the team members completely by surprise and one of them asked him why there was such a difference this time. He said, “All my life people have been telling me what to do. I feel like this is the first time I get to decide for myself.”
We employ a battery of methods to override the free will of others and get what we want.
- whining, nagging or begging
- bullying, intimidating with anger, threatening
- crying, playing the victim
- trying to make the other person feel guilty, “If you really loved me you would do what I want.”
- showing impatience, irritability, frustration
- shaming or putting peer pressure on them, “Everyone’s going along with this. You’re the only one out of step.”
- withdrawing affection, “You’re not going to get my love until you give me what I want.”
Now the thing about such methods is that they often work. It is possible to intimidate or shame others to get our way. However, the price we pay is a lack of peace. It turns out others don’t like to be controlled. In such cases, there will always be conflict or tension in the relationship either above or below the surface. Soul-level rest is impossible. We have violated the free will of those created in God’s image.
Not only is their peace disturbed, but so also is that of the manipulator who ends up like Herod, distrustful or downright paranoid. “The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.” (Isa. 57:20-21)
In contrast to Herod, the wisemen were so open-handed, they allowed God to direct them to and through a strange country. And God guided them to the same end He guided all other characters in the Christmas story– to Jesus, the Prince of Peace.
In the first post in this series, I encouraged us to turn aside this Christmas from the big world we can do nothing about and focus on the people for whom our love and our good intentions can make a difference. Can we also decide that in our conversations with them, we will not let our will press up against theirs? That we will not simply be focused on what we want to say but rather listen to others with interest? That we will let them blossom? Can we follow the instructions Jesus gave his disciples when he sent them out and “let our peace come upon” family friends? Let’s do our part to fulfill the angels declaration to the shepherds concerning the birth of Jesus. As the song says, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me!”
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