Over the years, I've had various experiences with individuals who have the need to dominate or control others. Whether it be that they wanted me to be their friend and nobody else's, or wanted me to confirm a false view of reality that they created, or they needed someone to argue with so that they could prove they were right about something, or even further, they wanted me to be their definition of the conservative, malleable Christian female, eventually it became a pattern that I've contemplated for awhile now.
Why do certain people feel that they need to dominate or control others? Why can't they function without another human being perceived as "under" them? I tend to think that there isn't just one reason for most people. We are complicated and complex creatures living in a world overtaken by a rebellion against it's Creator. Because this is the reality, the reasons can be due to sin of the controller or sin of those people or circumstances that may have hurt them (or both). Narrowing it down to fault can get pretty tricky. I have come to believe that even if it is the result of another's sin, how we react and what we do with our wounds can either further the pattern or damage of control or lead us to become less controllable (if given to Jesus).
In some cases it seems that those who tend to dominate others need to control something outside of themselves because they feel a sense of not being in control inside. Maybe their emotions are unruly. They've been wounded and instead of getting the right help they need to process and heal, they try to distract themselves with the "problems" of those around them. Or it could be that some life circumstance has occurred externally that has caused them to feel unsafe or unstable, so they reach for something that does make them feel safe and in a twisted way, that is to control another person. Another possibility might be that in the absence of submitting one's self to an authority rightfully over them (God), they attempt to claim a power that does not belong to them.
The passage in Matthew where Jesus uses the indignation of His disciples to teach them (and us) how we are to view authority tends to come to mind often when I attempt to analyze this whole pattern of domination. In this passage (Matthew 20:20-28), the disciples are showing their continuing ignorance of who Jesus actually is as the Messiah. Their cultural assumption, along with most of the Jews at the time, was that the Messiah would be a military King who would overthrow the oppressive Roman government and re-establish Israel as YHWH's chosen people. However, God's ways again prove to be so high above the ways of men. Jesus did have the authority to do all that the Jews desired of the Messiah, but He had a much more important task to accomplish in order to reconcile the whole world to the Father: to teach, serve, die a gruesome death, and rise up three days later having totally annihilated sin, death, and the evil one.
In verses 25-28, Jesus teaches the disciples that it is the way of Gentiles, sinners, to lord authority over others. Instead, by following His beautiful example, they (and we) are to serve others. Jesus says in this passage and in others (Matthew 5:1-12) that to be great in the Kingdom of God is to take on a position that to the world would seem lowly. This means that instead of dominating and controlling others, we are to serve them in self-sacrificing love. And later in Philippians, Paul delineates the example of Christ in this area. Because Jesus did not think that being equal with God was something that He should grasp and use to his own advantage, we should humble ourselves and consider other's interests above our own (Philippians 2:1-11).
Having the example of the servanthood of Jesus, the One who has all authority, helps us to distinguish when someone is either abusing an authority that they actually possess or when they are grasping at an authority that they think they should have but actually have not been given by God. In my experiences with those who try to dominate me or others, I may not always know the exact reasons for their abuse of authority, but I do know that if they are not following Jesus' example, there's something amiss in their actions or words. Also, in the same vein, we are given a way out of being dominated or controlled. If we know that we are submitted to a loving Savior who did not even use His own divine power to dominating ends, then we can look to Him and respond out of love even to a person who wants to degrade us. The controller's actions will ultimately be deflected in a manner that hopefully causes them to question themselves and therefore be given the choice of whether or not to seek to reorient themselves to the example of Jesus.
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