Letting Go to Have Control

Julia was destroying herself.

Shot after shot. Error after error. Nineteen years old, perfectionist in her DNA, daughter of doctors who accepted nothing below perfection. At ping-pong, she was a real-time tragedy.

Every movement calculated. Every angle measured. Every shot planned three moves ahead. And every time - every blessed time - the ball ended up where it shouldn't.

"I don't understand!" she screamed, slamming the paddle on the table. "I do everything right! I study the game, calculate angles, control every muscle!"

Silence. Then the sound of the ball rolling on the floor.

Again.

"Julia," I said quietly, "when did you learn to walk?"

She looked at me like I'd gone crazy. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Do you remember calculating the angle of every step? The precise balance of every muscle?"

"No, but..."

"How do you walk now?"

"I don't know. I just walk."

"Exactly." I picked up the ball. "You learned to walk by forgetting to walk."

Tick.

Giuseppe arrived at that moment. Seventy years of wisdom in worn sneakers. He saw Julia crying in frustration and understood everything.

"Control problems?" he asked, smiling.

"I can't," Julia sobbed. "The harder I try, the more I mess up."

Giuseppe picked up a paddle. "Want to see a miracle?"

"I don't believe in miracles."

"Perfect." Giuseppe closed his eyes. "Serve to me."

Julia looked at him incredulously. "You can't play with your eyes closed!"

"Serve to me."

She served. A normal shot, nothing special. Giuseppe, eyes closed, responded with a movement so fluid it seemed like dance. The ball came back perfect.

Julia served again. Harder. Giuseppe responded effortlessly, without seeing, without calculating. As if his body knew things his mind didn't.

"How do you do it?" Julia whispered.

Giuseppe opened his eyes. "Sixty years ago, I learned that control is an illusion. Real control is born when you stop controlling."

"That doesn't make sense."

"Like Jesus who said: 'For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it' (Matthew 16:25, NIV)." Giuseppe rolled the ball. "It's the Kingdom paradox: to have everything, you must let go of everything."

Julia sat down. "But I need control. If I don't control everything, everything falls apart."

"Like your father?" I asked.

She glared at me. "Leave my father out of this."

"Julia," Giuseppe sat beside her, "how many plans did you make for this camp?"

"Seventeen." Automatic response. "Goals list, spiritual growth program, study topics outline..."

"And how many came true?"

Silence. Then a bitter laugh. "Zero. Everything went differently."

"Better or worse?"

Long pause. "Better. But that doesn't mean..."

"Julia," I interrupted, "do you know Proverbs 16:9?"

Head shake.

"'In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps' (Proverbs 16:9, NIV)." I picked up the paddle. "God isn't against our plans. He's against our illusion that we control where they take us."

Giuseppe smiled. "Ping-pong is prayer in motion. You plan the shot, but then you have to trust that your body knows what to do."

"Like Abraham," I added. "God told him: 'Go from your country... to the land I will show you' (Genesis 12:1, NIV). He didn't tell him where. He said: trust and walk."

Julia was trembling. "But if I let go of control, what's left?"

"Faith," Giuseppe answered. "Control is fear dressed as responsibility. Faith is love dressed as courage."

"Want to try?"

Julia picked up the paddle. Hands shaking like leaves in a storm. "I don't know how not to control."

"You don't do it. You are it." Giuseppe served her gently. "Don't think about the shot. Feel the ball."

First shot: controlled, rigid, wrong.

"Breathe."

Second shot: still controlled, but less. On target.

"Good. Now close your eyes."

"What?"

"Trust."

Julia closed her eyes. Giuseppe served. She moved the paddle... and made the most beautiful shot of her life.

Perfect. Fluid. Uncontrolled.

She opened her eyes, crying. "How did I do that?"

"You stopped interfering with what you already knew how to do." Giuseppe picked up the ball. "Your body played. You just allowed it."

We played for an hour. Julia learning to trust instead of control. Every shot a small death of the ego. Every bounce a small resurrection of the soul.

"It's like praying," she whispered at one point.

"How?" I asked.

"For years I've prayed, trying to control what to say to God, how to say it, when to say it." She made a splendid shot without looking. "But maybe praying is simply allowing God to pray through me."

Giuseppe stopped. Eyes bright. "Continue."

"Paul wrote: 'The Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans' (Romans 8:26, NIV)." Julia put down the paddle. "Maybe I don't have to control my prayers. I just have to open my mouth and let the Spirit pray."

"Like ping-pong," I said. "You don't control the ball. You accompany it."

That evening, Julia prayed during worship. Not the perfect prayer she'd planned. A stammering, broken, true prayer. She thanked God for teaching her that losing control was the beginning of freedom.

"Lord," she cried, "I've spent nineteen years trying to be perfect for you. Tonight I choose to be real with you."

The room exploded in tears. Because everyone recognized that struggle. Everyone had tried to control God instead of letting themselves be controlled by Him.

Giuseppe approached me afterward. "How did you know about Abraham?"

"I didn't know," I replied. "I just let the Spirit quote through me."

He laughed. "You're learning."

In my notebook that night: "Fifth day. I saw Matthew 16:25 incarnated in a paddle that stops controlling. Julia discovered that real control is trust. Giuseppe showed us that sixty years of ping-pong teaches what Jesus said in one sentence: to have everything, let go of everything. I understood that even quoting the Bible becomes truer when I stop controlling what to say and allow the Spirit to speak."

"Ping-pong is the school of faith: plan, then trust. Learn, then forget. Control, then let go."

"Tomorrow I want to see what else God hides when I stop trying to find Him."