The Cost of Control: Money

Adapted excerpt taken from The Cost of Control: Why We Crave It, the Anxiety It Gives Us, and the Real Power God Promises by Sharon Hodde Miller

“Tell them to name their price. Everybody has a number!”

Believe it or not, this sentence came out of my mouth in a staff meeting. Our church has grown and stretched beyond the limits of our current location, so we have been looking for other options for months. One especially convenient option had been closed to us for years, but when the door began to open a bit, my shrewd, wheeling-and-dealing boss-lady side came out. I did not know this part of me existed until she was making hard-nosed suggestions like “Go above their head and call their boss!” and asking spiritual questions like “Who would turn down MONEY?” As if money— not the miraculous power of God—is the solution to all our problems.

The temptation to rely on money as a means of control is a powerful one, but it is also one of the subtlest. Like the other forms of control we have examined, we don’t always realize we are relying on it, and I can speak to this from experience. I grew up in a home where we always had more than we needed. We lived in a nice house. We took nice vacations. I attended a very good school. When I turned sixteen and got my driver’s license, I was given a car that I did not have to pay for on my own. Because of all this, things in my life just worked out. I could go to whatever college I chose, because finances were not an obstacle for me. I was able to put all my focus on my schoolwork, because I didn’t have to get a job. That didn’t mean everything was easy or that I never faced hurdles, but none of those hurdles were financial.

If you had asked me whether I trusted too much in money, I would have said no, but in truth, I had no ground to stand on. When you grow up with wealth, you go through life with an invisible safety net underneath you at all times. This made it hard to know how much of my faith’s foundation was standing on Christ or trusting in the net. I wasn’t able to see myself, or my faith, clearly until this safety net was gone, and if my response to our church’s location search was any indication, I trusted in money quite a lot.

Most people, of course, do not grow up as I did. The majority of the world, in fact. Most people have experienced financial lack or instability during their lifetime, so before we dig in to the relationship between money and control, I want to ground this conversation in God’s heart for those in need. God’s orientation toward the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the orphan, the widow, and the vulnerable is most certainly one of compassion.

Kindness to the poor is a loan to the Lord. (Prov. 19:17)

The one who oppresses the poor person insults his Maker, but one who is kind to the needy honors him. (Prov. 14:31)

A generous person will be blessed,
for he shares his food with the poor. (Prov. 22:9)

And if you offer yourself to the hungry,
and satisfy the afflicted one,
then your light will shine in the darkness,
and your night will be like noonday. (Isa. 58:10)

These verses only scratch the surface. The Bible is positively brimming with God’s care and concern for our needs, which means if you grew up in financial insecurity, or if you are living in it now, your desire for money is not a sign that you struggle with control. It is a sign that you live in a broken world.

That truth is a necessary prerequisite for this chapter. The desire for “enough”— enough food, enough money to pay the bills, enough margin to splurge on your loved ones— is not wrong or sinful. It is a holy yearning for the paradise you were created to inhabit, a paradise where there was always enough. That world is behind us, and it is also ahead of us, but your soul feels the dissonance of this in-between place. And that is okay.

With that in mind, Scripture also focuses a lot of time on warning about our fractured relationship with money.

Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with income. (Eccles. 5:10)

No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. (Matt. 6:24)

If wealth increases,
don’t set your heart on it. (Ps. 62:10)

That first verse is a WHOLE sermon. For any of us who claim we do not trust our money too much, Ecclesiastes evades our self-deception by asking an entirely different question:

Are you satisfied with your income?

Is your current income enough for you, or do you find yourself daydreaming about how much better, or easier, your life would be with just a little more?

These questions get at the relationship between money and security, a relationship that falls on a spectrum. On one end, money is the provision of a basic need; on the other end, money is a form of control. The point at which our relationship with money shifts from a “healthy need” to a “control need” is when our basic needs are met but our hearts don’t reflect it. I know families who make six-figure incomes, live in giant houses, and send their children to private schools, and yet they still relate to money with a poverty mentality. Money is their constant focus and a steady source of anxiety and stress. They have plenty, but it never feels like enough. This leads us to the first way we use money to control. When we cling to money for stability and predictability, and live in dread of losing it, we are using money to feel in control.

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Sharon Hodde Miller, The Cost of Control: Why We Crave It, the Anxiety It Gives Us, and the Real Power God Promises, Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, ©2022. Used by permission.

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