9 Trading the Illusion of Control for the Reality of Love: Charity

9

Trading the Illusion

of Control for the

Reality of Love

Charity

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

God does not hurry over things; time is his, not mine. And I, little creature, a man, have been called to be transformed into God by sharing his life. And what transforms me is the charity which he pours into my heart.

MY WIFE AND I LOOKED OVER the Christmas gifts waiting to be wrapped and something felt missing—we wanted a final gift, a grand surprise that would make our son’s four-year-old eyes light up. So we brainstormed for a bit and eventually landed on a big idea: one of those miniature vehicles kids can actually drive.

The only problem—it was December 23.

Two days to Christmas and every shipping option had expired.

So I picked up the phone and started calling around. Finally, I found one an hour away. I asked the clerk to hold it and geared up for a two-hour round trip to save Christmas.

I figured I’d make the most of the long drive. So I made a cup of coffee and pressed play on one of my favorite books—The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis. I love this book so much that my wife surprised me with a first edition for our tenth wedding anniversary.

There I was, driving and listening, and then something happened. About fifteen minutes into the journey, I started to cry—uncontrollably.

I don’t know why. I don’t think it was a line in the book. Something just opened up and the tears came—for twenty or thirty minutes. Then they stopped. What happened? I don’t know. And then . . . something more. Something I didn’t notice until I walked through the automatic doors of the toy store.

The moment I stepped in, a strange tenderness overtook me. It was directed toward the people. I looked around and, suddenly, I cared. Deeply. For all of them. Strangers, yes, but somehow beloved. I wanted to help them. To serve them. What were they hoping to find? Could I lend a hand? Could I ease even one small burden they carried?

The feeling was strange and spectacular.

“Pull around back and we’ll load ya up,” the clerk said. So I rolled around to the alley, folded down my back seats and waited up front. I’ve never felt like this, I thought. It’s a little embarrassing to admit but I don’t remember ever caring this much about people—but I did, all I wanted to do was come alongside them.

Just then, two guys came out, hauling the little monster. They tried angling it through my trunk but it wouldn’t fit. So right there in the alley, they started unboxing it. I watched in the rearview mirror—but my heart couldn’t take it. I jumped out, ran to the back, and helped them. I think they were surprised. “Most customers just watch,” one of the guys said. But I couldn’t.

Looking back on that toy-store moment, I now see what happened—the weight of my self-centeredness lifted. It was like I had disappeared. But not in a bad way. In the best possible way. I was still me, but all my attention was directed outward. I was free from self-concern. All I wanted to do was help.

Søren Kierkegaard explained what I was experiencing, “When one has once fully entered into the realm of love, the world—no matter how imperfect—becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for love.”

That’s what it felt like. I had crossed a threshold into a different kind of world. A world shot through with grace. A world called love.

This is what the old writers called the “unitive stage.”

What Is Charity?

The early Christians had a name for the kind of love I encountered that day. They called it charity—not in the modern sense of giving money, but in the ancient sense: a deep, self-giving love.

Charity comes from the Latin caritas, which means “dearness, affection for what is precious.” And caritas itself is a translation of the New Testament Greek word agapē—a love that wills the good of another without asking anything in return. Different words. Different languages. But the same basic reality: a love that gives itself away.

This is what I tasted on my trip to save Christmas. I say tasted because it faded within forty-eight hours—but even so, it left a mark. It was another mystical gift for my threefold journey. For a brief moment, I was caught up in the life of union. It was breathtaking. And it echoed what the saints have always said, and what we began to see in

To love God is to love what God loves.

You can’t move toward union with him without being drawn into deeper union with the people around you. Charity “ones” us to our neighbors.

To be sure, this charity wasn’t something I achieved. I couldn’t summon it. It was given. And in receiving it, I glimpsed the life I was made for; the life that flows from God, the life that is God. This is the aim of the threefold path: to draw us—fully, freely, and finally—into union with the God who is love.

And that scriptural phrase—God is love—is not sentiment. It’s not even metaphor. It’s metaphysical, a claim about the core of everything that exists. It means that love is not something God occasionally does. Love is what God eternally is. It’s the very essence of what it means for God to be God. It’s the shared life between Father, Son, and Spirit—an infinite exchange of self-giving, each person pouring themselves out into the other in a never-beginning and never-ending rhythm of giving and receiving.

The Christian tradition named this exchange: perichoresis—a kind of mutual give-and-take, where the Father empties himself into the Son, the Son into the Spirit, and the Spirit back into the Father. That might sound abstract—but you can see it in the New Testament:

In other words, each one moves outward in love toward the other. That’s what charity is, and that’s what God is. And that’s what we’re invited to become.

Counterfeit Love

One evening, one of my kids mentioned they had a test coming up. “Have you started studying?” I asked. “Not yet,” they said, casually flipping through a book. “I’m doing it tonight.”

I nodded. But something inside me triggered.

We’re entering the teenage years now—and things are shifting. There’s still connection, still laughter, but also a quiet pulling away. A new interior life I’m not invited into as often.

I couldn’t let their indifference go, so I ordered, “Sit down and I’ll map it out for you.” I pulled out some paper. “I’ll make a little study planner—you can just follow it.” They smiled, politely. “I’ll be fine.”

But last time, they weren’t. I remember the disappointment after the grade, the slump in their shoulders. So I pressed one more time: “Don’t you remember how stressed you were last time?” A shrug. A polite thank-you. Nothing more.

I know that I’m being too controlling, but what else am I supposed to do?

When they were young, control made sense—bedtimes, car seats, boundaries. That kind of love was not only appropriate, it was essential. I had to choose so many things for them.

But now I’m beginning to see it for what it was: a starter love. The kind that gets things going but isn’t meant to carry them forever. They’re not little anymore. They’re becoming. And if they’re going to keep becoming, I have to learn to let go. And that’s terrifying. It takes a new kind of love—a more mature love—a love I’m still trying to figure out.

There’s a parallel here with my life with God, except I’m the child. And what strikes me is how much I still want the starter kind of love from God—the kind that steps in, the kind that takes over.

Just do the work for me, God.

Give me the answers so I don’t have to live the questions.

Take away the desire before it tempts me.

Make me bloom so I don’t have to grow.

I fantasize about God overriding me—not because I don’t love him, but because freedom is heavy. It’s risky. If God would just take control, maybe then I’d become who he wants me to be.

But that’s not how God works.

Because that’s not how love works.

Here’s what I mean: God is omnipotent—meaning, he is all-powerful. He can get what he wants, when he wants it. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t control. He doesn’t use power the way I would. If I had his power, I’d fix everything unloving about myself now. I’d remove every trace of selfishness. Every hint of gluttony. Every impulse to defend myself when I’m wrong. I wouldn’t wait for growth—I’d force it.

But he doesn’t.

He lets me wrestle. He lets me wander and come home to union on my own. Why? Because love, the self-giving kind, the kind that is God, can’t be controlled. It can only be cultivated.

If love is real, it must be chosen.

And if it must be chosen, then it must allow for all of those moments when it isn’t. That’s the terrifying dignity of love. God doesn’t force it. If he reached in and instantly made me loving without my participation—he would undo the very thing he’s trying to accomplish. It’s like trying to force a rose to bloom by pulling open its petals. You don’t help it—you ruin it. It’s the same with love, with growth, with becoming. You can’t create the likeness of God by destroying the image of God.

Love formed without freedom isn’t love.

And it’s not just that I want God to control me—I want to control my own transformation too. So much of what I once called my “apprenticeship” was just me trying to engineer outcomes. But again, divine love can’t be engineered—it’s received. And that’s what makes transforming into God’s kind of love so maddening. I can prepare the soil, but I can’t make the seed sprout. I can return to the same quiet place each morning, say the same breath prayer, and nothing happens. And then, out of nowhere, I’m driving down the highway, and something does. Tears. A new tenderness. That’s the way of love. You can’t predict it. You can’t control it. You have to surrender to the process. You have to open your arms wide.

It’s a great irony, the God who is all-powerful never overpowers. He never forces love. Instead, he reveals, invites, waits, even suffers. And that’s the deeper truth beneath all of this—Jesus didn’t just teach about love. He embodied it.

Not through control.

Not through coercion.

But through crucifixion.

Secret Strength

Rome didn’t invent crucifixion, but they did perfect it. One of their politicians, Cicero, called it the “most cruel and hideous of tortures.” Thousands upon thousands of these killings were performed publicly, so spectators could see the tears and blood spill from the victims’ bodies. Executioners could only leave their victims once they were dead, so to expedite things they would fracture a tibia, spear the heart, or build a little smoking fire at the base to induce asphyxiation.

But perhaps the most disturbing thing about crucifixion was not what the Romans did before their victims died, but after. It was rare when they allowed a corpse to come off the wood. No, they wanted people to witness the skin slip and the abdomen bloat. They wanted the birds and dogs to feed. They wanted people to smell fear. Why? Why perform such cruelty? Why treat another human being, even an enemy, so inhumanely?

Answer: To make a magnificent statement of power.

Rome was in control: Undermine our empire and this will happen to you. Oppose us, and you will be rendered powerless.

And this, I think, was the appeal for Christ. Here was his secret strength: powerlessness.

Here was a way to make a magnificent statement of his own. Here was a way to make what was so intimately invisible inside him so strikingly visible and public. Here was what he wanted his apprentices to imitate from age to age:

Powerlessness is the greatest power. Jesus climbed onto the empire’s symbol of control and transformed it into a symbol of charity—a love that doesn’t overpower but empowers. A love that doesn’t use force but gives itself away.

That’s the slow trade I’m learning to make on my threefold journey: the love of power for the power of love.

It’s what the Christian tradition calls cruciform love—love shaped like a cross. A love that doesn’t possess or demand. That doesn’t coerce or control. It simply gives, and receives whatever comes.

What does that look like?

That all might sound difficult. And in the beginning, it is. In the purgative and illuminative stages, charity is a strain because we’re working against our nature. But that changes in the unitive stage, love begins to feel natural. Even easy.

Why?

Because our nature is changing. Once love becomes who you are, it’s not a burden. It doesn’t drain you. It becomes the most natural thing in the world.

How did I miss this growing up? Cruciform love? Jesus, powerless on wood? I saw it, of course. I saw Christ hanging there. The image was everywhere—in paintings, in movies, in storybook Bibles. But I never really saw it. Not for what it was. Growing up in Western evangelicalism you get quite a different story from the early Christian understanding of what happened on that day.

Blinded to the Sacrifice

During World War II, a Polish man was sentenced to die in Auschwitz. As he cried out in anguish for his wife and children, another prisoner—Maximilian Kolbe—stepped forward and asked to take his place. Shockingly, the Nazi guard agreed. Kolbe was led away and sentenced to die by starvation. That act of love bound the man to Kolbe. The man later said, “I owe to him the fact that I could live.” And he spent the rest of his life telling Kolbe’s story. Even in death, the man wanted the world to know what love had done. His tombstone reads: “Saved by the martyrdom of St. Maximilian Kolbe.”

This story shows us something deep about sacrifice: It binds. It ties lives together through love—but only if the sacrifice is seen. Only if it’s known.

Imagine if the man spared by Kolbe had never known what happened—if it all took place behind closed doors, if he walked out of Auschwitz unaware that another man had stepped forward to die in his place. He would have lived, yes—but the bond would never have formed within him. No attachment. No love.

Without awareness, even the most powerful act of love can pass by unnoticed, unreceived. The gift is given, but the bond is never formed.

That’s what happened to me growing up. I saw the cross. I knew the story. I could tell you who died and how it happened. But the focus was always on the transaction, not the relationship. The story was about justice being served, not love being shared.

God was the judge, I was the guilty one, and Jesus was the substitute who took my penalty.

This was supposed to be good news—but it never landed.

I suppose it left me feeling spared—but not wanted. Tolerated, not loved. So the bond never really formed, because I couldn’t see the cross for what it was.

The Roots of My Transactionalism

The more I explored ancient Christianity, the more I began to see how small my vision of the cross was. And by extension, how small my understanding of salvation: If the cross was nothing more than a legal solution to a legal problem, then salvation was a transaction.

And that single belief, more than any other, infected my entire threefold journey. The logic was simple:

That was it. No one ever said it outright, but that’s what I caught. And once I caught it, I couldn’t help reproducing it, again and again. In my prayers. In my spiritual practices. Even in my relationships. I was always bargaining, performing, managing outcomes—because that’s what I thought God was doing too.

That’s what a transactional view of salvation does—it doesn’t just distort how we think about God; it distorts how we think about our journey toward him. It keeps the relationship shallow. It prevents the bond from forming. Transactions may settle accounts, but they don’t unite people. You don’t unite to a transaction—you unite to a person. You unite through love.

So if salvation wasn’t a transaction, what was it?

It’s everything we’ve been talking about in this book: It’s transformation.

It’s the slow crucifixion of the self that resists love, and the resurrection of a new self being formed by love. Salvation is the ongoing process of turning from self-centeredness to others-centeredness. From the love of power to the power of love. Which means salvation is more than we were taught to expect:

Yes, the cross was not a legal fiction—it was divine love revealed. That’s why Jesus died, to say to you, to me, and to the whole world: “I love you.”

If you want to know the quality of someone’s love, measure the depth of its sacrifice. There is no greater depth than death—and that’s what God demonstrates in Jesus.

That’s why really seeing the sacrifice matters—it gets our attention, wakes us up, makes us see. Jesus’ sacrifice is how God calls us back to himself, not by force, but by love. It’s how he touches the deepest part of our heart. As George MacDonald said, “It is by loving and not by being loved that one can come nearest to the soul of another.”

And when we finally become aware of that love, the bond begins to form—drawn tighter over time until it becomes unbreakable.

What I’m trying to say is that salvation is transformation. And the cross is the invitation.

An invitation to die and be remade—not in one sweeping moment, but through a thousand little deaths. Each one crucifying the self we’ve tried to create on our own. Each one making a little more space for love to remake us.

Because the cross isn’t just where Jesus ended his life. It’s where he finished something begun long before.

It Is Finished

From the very first verse, the apostle John signals that his Gospel is a new Genesis. “In the beginning” he writes, to echo the creation story itself. There are many of these echoes throughout his Gospel, but one of the most intriguing appears at the cross—an echo that theologian John Behr draws our attention to in his little book, Becoming Human.

He explains that in Genesis, human beings were the only thing God created that was not followed by the words “and it was so.”

Why?

Because to be made in God’s image means we’re invited to participate in our own creation. Becoming human, it turns out, takes two wills: God’s will and ours—which mysteriously means we’re not created yet. The stars and sea are finished. The birds and fish are finished. We are not. Which leads Behr to Jesus’ final three words on the cross. Do you remember them? Can you recall what he said as he labored to breathe? “It is finished” (John 19:30).

What’s finished?

Yes. All of that. But Behr says there’s more. What’s finished, for the apostle John, is what God began in Genesis—the creation of a human being.

Jesus is the first true human in history.

On the cross, we finally see what a fully created person looks like. We see someone designed in God’s image and fully developed in his likeness. We see our human destiny—love enfleshed. The same kind of radiant, self-giving love that characterizes life in the unitive stage.

Which means when Jesus invites us to take up our cross and follow him, he’s not just calling us to die, he’s calling us to work with him to complete our creation. To become fully human at last. Fully alive. Fully love. The Gospel writers give us glimpses of this life. They show us that Jesus was the kind of person who:

This is love shaped like a cross. It was the shape of Jesus’ life, the shape of his death, and the shape of the life he rose into. We join him there by learning to choose the same kind of shape—by embracing our own powerless participation, which means joining his work without trying to control the outcome.

Because when we do, we’re not just being saved. We’re being made.

Stronger Than Death

I wish I could return to that mystical moment in the toy store, to the tears, the lightness, the effortless love. But I can’t summon it. It is not mine to control. Charity comes when it comes.

Honestly, union still feels far off. I’m still somewhere in the lowlands, where the road is muddy and the signs are hard to read—the long, slow middle of being made new.

And yet, even here, I have something to offer. Not control but consent. Just my own small yes. A willingness to keep showing up, even when I don’t feel much of anything. That’s what I mean by powerless participation. It’s not impressive. But it’s enough. Because when I give that, grace comes. Not in ways I can predict or measure. But in ways that slowly, quietly, change me. This, I’ve come to believe, is how Jesus saves me—not once, but again and again.

Salvation isn’t a one-time event. It’s an ongoing creation. Not a transaction, but a transformation. And that transformation begins when we see the sacrifice for what it is and trust that God is saying, “I love you.”

That’s the love that comes to fullness in the unitive stage. And as we’ll discover in our final chapter, love is not something for which a lifetime of seeking and shaping is nearly enough. Because love is not our destination; it’s our destiny.

It’s a great irony: The end of the journey is no end at all.

In Sum

↑ Back to top