Lessons from Mary on Daring to Surrender Control {Kristi Huseby} - Shannon Popkin (2025)

What are you trying to control? How is it affecting your relationships with people and with God? Kristi Huseby joins me on the Live Like It’s True podcast to talk about the story of the Mary and the angel, and will consider Mary’s great risk ask she dared to surrender it all to God.

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Music: Cade Popkin

Kristi Huseby

Kristi is an author and speaker, and works as the Director of Community Development at Reach Global, the international arm of the Evangelical Free Churches of America. She travels internationally, training and equipping, empowering women to be lead more effective in their own churches and communities, in the areas God has called them to serve.

Connect with Guest:

kristihuseby.com

www.instagram.com/kjhuseby/

www.facebook.com/kristi.brownhuseby

Key Takeaways

• Control can destroy relationships and lead to isolation.
• Mary is the opposite of a Control Girl.
• Would the enemy think of me as dangerous for the kingdom?
• We have to get cultural context to understand what was asked of Mary.
• God’s favor and challenges can be simultaneous.
• Opening our hand in surrender allows us to receive God’s blessings.

More Stand Alone Episodes:

Episode Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Kristi Huseby and Her Mission
02:18 The Journey of Control: Personal Stories
04:41 Surrendering Control: A Turning Point
07:21 The Biblical Perspective on Control
10:20 Living Dangerously for God: The Call to Surrender
12:41 Mary’s Story: A Surprising Choice
14:55 Cultural Context: Mary’s Pregnancy and Its Challenges
16:41 The Significance of Mary’s Response
18:41 Living Like It’s True: Trusting God in Disruption

Episode Transcript

(Kristi and I were passing a mic back and forth, so the transcript has both of us run together. Sorry about that!)

I’m so excited to have my dear friend, Kristi Huseby be here with us today. Kristi is an author, a speaker. She’s the Director of Community Development at Reach Global, which is the international arm of the Evangelical Free Churches of America. So Kristi travels internationally training and equipping.

and empowering women to lead more effectively in their churches and communities in the areas that God has called them to serve. Kristi is also the author of She Who Dares, which is a book all about leaving behind the mediocracy of playing it safe and daring to surrender to the God who asks us to take great big risks. So Kristi, I’m so excited to have you here with us at Live Like It’s True. It is good to be here today. Well, you and I have.

journeyed together a great number of years, right?

And so it’s been fun supporting. I’m one of your monthly supporters And that is wonderful. It’s really helping women overseas be empowered with the gospel and to serve their people well. Well, it’s a joy to be part of your team.

you call it the grace tribe and I just love being on that team and you know I mean not everybody can just hop on planes and go from country to country and not have jet lag and just be comfortable wherever they are but that’s you my dear right? Yes I’ve been in a number of crazy places and have experienced a lot of different things but God has given me a sense of adventure and

love for the people and so I do it with joy and I’m so grateful that the Lord allows me to do it. And so if you listener have followed me for any length of time and are familiar with my book, Control Girl, I had a whole, now I haven’t done this with my subsequent books.

I think I had more time on my hands back then. But I did a bunch of different, you could sign up to get these email subscriptions. And one of them was the Control Girl to Jesus Girl series. It was a series of blog posts that came in your inbox. you still can sign up for those. It’s still available. We’ll link to it in our show notes. But Kristi wrote one of the posts for that. And it was the series onwomen who had struggled with control in a different area of their life and how God had changed them as they surrendered to him. And so, Kristi, yours was called From Controlling Wife to Restored Marriage. I’m just going to read a little section from what you wrote there. So here’s what you wrote.

Being a control freak came naturally to me. I never really had to work very hard at it. I can still relate to that. You said, it was in my DNA. I always had to be right. I knew everything and no one could tell me anything. I was perfect. Well, at least I strived for perfection. I wanted everyone to see that I had it all together. I was at the wheel. I didn’t need God because I was God of my own little kingdom. And you quoted the verse, Proverbs 14-12 that says, there’s a path before each person that seems right.

but it ends in death and being the God of your of my own little kingdom seemed right to me, but it was marching through my marriage, leaving destruction in its wake. So Kristi, can you tell us the story that you told in that blog post about how your husband’s words helped you to see that this wasn’t the right way to live?

Yeah, it was a real turning point in our marriage for me anyway. We were making the bed and I was correcting him on his side of how to do that. And he threw the sheets and the comforter on the bed and said, I give up, I cannot please you. And he walked out of the room. And that was a wake up call for me. I just sat there and God really

hit me, like that I was the one, I was putting it on him that he needed to be right and that he had all the problems, but realized that day that it was me and that I was destroying our marriage. it was in my DNA and I did not know what to do. I thought I can’t read another book that this is not going to help. I need God.

to root this out of my life because this is the way that I have lived. It was so deeply rooted in my life that I couldn’t get it out on my own. And I fell on my knees and I said, God, only you can do this. I know this. And so I covenant with you. And I will say that I am sorry if you will point out to me every time I take control.

And sorry is a hard thing for me to say because perfectionists don’t like to admit that they’ve made a mistake and that they failed. And so sorry has been a really big deal for me. And I stepped into one of the hardest times of my life of allowing God to show me and he was faithful in doing that. And I had to say, I’m sorry to him, to whoever I was controlling. And I would say, I’m sorry to my kids and

But then I would say, but you shouldn’t have done it that way. You should have. And then the Lord would say, Kristi that’s not sorry. That’s excuse. You need to say, I’m sorry. So with my kids, with my husband, God began to root that out of my heart and out of my life. Am I completely rooted out? I still think there are places where I know that I have to continue to surrender that to the Lord.

But that moment in that time, God began a deep work in my life. Well, I’m sorry is actually giving up control. That’s why it’s so hard for us control girls. I could so relate. I mean, is it a sin to ask my husband to put the sheets on so

I don’t know why it’s so hard. Like the thicker part, you know, the thicker hem is the part that goes towards the pillows. Like, I don’t know why it’s so hard. And is that wrong? Well, maybe not. But I had the same issue where it was all these little things in my marriage, with my house, with my kids, where it all added up to a direction with my heart where I had to be in control and I was right. And if you crossed me.

You know, which my husband did. It was like all out war over the sheets or the way you cut the sandwiches or, how you dressed the kids or what you did with the dishes or all of these little tiny things. And there was so much strife in our home. And so I had a similar story. But, you know, I wrote this book about control and where God first opened my eyes was the story of Eve.

where noticing like when she took that fruit, she wasn’t just disobeying a rule, she was rejecting God’s rule over her. And in response, Genesis 3, 16, God says to her, your desire now will be, you’ve got disordered desires, and now your desire is going to be to rule over your husband, you know, to take control over his life. Your desire will be for your husband, and it’s this desire, the New Living Translation puts it, you will desire to control your husband.

And so when I saw that, I was like, my goodness, this is this desire that I have to control my husband, and not only him, my kids and everything else in my life. This all stems from this first control girl wanting to take control. And so for me, this book, was very much my own therapeutic process of saying, God, I need you to root this out of my life. And maybe I can look into the lives of these other

women in the Bible, they too were daughters of Eve. And maybe I can learn some lessons from them about, how to avoid the consequence of control or how to surrender control to God or what God thinks about us as, you know, just think how small we are, plucking whatever fruit looks good to us, right? And so that was really in my heart and my mind, God was opening.

my eyes to all of the control in my life and showing me the destructive pattern and how this was rooted in the fall, in the curse over God’s creation. It’s not His good intention and His design. And so when I got to the end of that book, these seven women that I studied, There was a lot of pain and agony and struggle with women trying to take control.

and doing exactly what I do, trying to take everything into their own little hands, gripping tighter, digging their heels, and making everybody miserable in the process. There were not a lot of redemptive stories where it was like, OK, do it like she did. And so I wanted to close the book with a really powerful redemptive story of the opposite of control, a story of surrender. And so the only one that I felt like did it perfectly was Mary,

the mother of Jesus. you wrote a little bit, tell us about your book, She Who Dares and why Mary’s included in that book also. Well, She Who Dares is really a desire to help women step into living dangerously for God by saying yes to whatever he calls us to, whether you, he calls you to live in Africa or to do battle in your bedroom.

through prayer. There’s just this desire I see that God wants us as followers of Him to wake up and to live dangerously for Him. I so desire to see, like, does Satan look at my life and say, Kristi, you are dangerous to me? That’s what I wanted for

these women as people read this to say, yes, I want to be dangerous to the kingdom of evil. so Mary to me was dangerous to the kingdom of evil. her heart as a young girl to say yes to God to something incredibly difficult was amazing and dangerous living.

Yeah, so there’s something about surrender that sets us up to God working powerfully in the world. And so, and there’s something about gripping onto control that closes us off from being recipients of this power that he wants to, you know, use. And controlling women, they don’t want to live dangerously. They want to have everything all buttoned up.

and sealed in tight, want to play everything safe because they want to be in control. so, you know, having this open hand of surrender to God, it’s like, well, I don’t know what he’s gonna put in that hand, right? But yeah, so often when I speak on the topic of control, I’ll say, open your hand, you know, this is more in response to the message where I’ll say, open your hand and I want you to feel the thing in the palm of your hand that feels so out of control. And I want you to like…

grip your hand as tightly as you can, like feel your fingernails digging into your skin. That’s what you as a daughter of Eve, that’s what you want to do. And yet what would happen if you opened your hand to God? And the beautiful thing about an open hand is not only are you releasing this thing that you can’t control, but now you’re in a posture to receive from the Lord where that’s what we’re to see in Mary’s story. She,

both was surrendering and receiving this beautiful gift. She got to be the mother of our Lord Jesus. And, you know, I mean, that’s our perspective as we look in on her story. Well, yeah, it was a great opportunity. It was a gift. We all know her name and we honor her in the overarching metanarrative story of the Bible. But yet for her, there was great expense and great costliness.

So Kristi, would you read for us this story in Luke chapter one? We’re going to be reading verses 26 through 38. And which translation are you using? The New Living.

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. Gabriel appeared to her and said, Greetings, favored woman, the Lord is with you. Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. Don’t be afraid, Mary, the angel told her, for you have found favor with God.

You will conceive and give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus. He will be very great and will be called the son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David and he will reign over Israel forever. His kingdom will never end.” Mary asked the angel, how can this happen? I’m a virgin. The angel replied, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High

will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy and he will be called the son of God. What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age. People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. For the word of God will never fail.” Mary responded, I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.

and then the angel left her.

Okay, so one of the questions that we like to ask here at Live Like It’s True is what is surprising or unusual about this story? What are the surprises here in this story? Well, I think about Mary being so young, you know, 15, 16 years old

the surprising thing is that the angel would visit this young girl. And then the message he gives her is so surprising. I just can’t imagine

It must have been really shocking. So, I mean, I’m just backing up to think about the overarching narrative from Genesis 315. You know, we talked about the curse in Genesis 316, but in Genesis 315, that is the first mention of the gospel where Adam and Eve have sinned.

they had a perfect, beautiful garden to live in when they were under God’s rule, but they are refusing that. They’re like, rejecting the idea that he is God and they are not. Eve said she wanted to be like God as she took this route. And so by wanting to be our own God, we have ushered in all of the consequences and the evils and everything that we deal with. But God being

rich in mercy and great love toward us promised right at the beginning of the story to send a savior. Now, what do the people of God know about this savior so far? Like think about the Israelites who had the law, who had the commandments,

they were anticipating the Messiah. They knew the Messiah was coming. They did not know that the Messiah was going to be the Son of God. That was the surprise. They knew that the Messiah would be born of a woman. That was told to them back in Genesis 3.15. And so Eve, when she has her first baby,

She thinks it’s the Messiah, when she talks about Cain, she’s thinking, this is the savior I’ve given birth to the one. Well, then we find out Cain is a murderer.

and he murders the second born Abel, so it’s not those two. And then she has Seth, and I think she thinks that one’s going to be the Savior. Well, and then Noah comes on the scene and they think maybe he’ll be the Savior. And then he ends up the end of his story is not redemptive at all. And so one after another after another, we’re looking at these different generations and we know that a Messiah is coming and that he’s going to be born of a woman. But what they don’t, what the big surprise is, is that this Savior will be the Son of God.

The disciples are the first ones to put that together because they know that Jesus is the Messiah.

They know that Jesus is the Messiah. They think He’s going to overthrow Rome. But it’s in, I think, Matthew 14, where after Jesus walks on the water, they say, surely He is the Son of God. He’s two in one. He’s the Messiah, and He’s also God’s Son. the Bible is progressive in its revelation. We know more about the story at the end than we do at the beginning.

And so this is very surprising They’ve all been waiting for the Messiah, but a teenage girl is going to be involved in the story. is crazy. And like you just said, if she’s a typical teenager, she’s, and she’s getting married. You know, this is a very unique and special year in her life.

I think it’s interesting that God chose this time. He could have chosen for her to become the mother of Jesus before she was engaged. That would have been shameful for sure. And I think a lot of people then would have doubted, like, sure.

This baby just came from the Son of God by the fact that she’s engaged and that Joseph keeps the engagement. It kind of gives testimony to the fact that she was righteous. She hadn’t been promiscuous, right? But then also if you think about if she had become pregnant with the Son of God after the wedding had taken place,

Well, then everybody would be like, yeah, this is the son of God. We know where babies come from. And so this, feel like, is really strategic timing to be wrapped in the protection of engagement, But for her, mean, Kristi, talk about the shock of having this angel tell her.

you’re going to become what? Yeah, I think even even before that when it says that the angel came to her and said greetings favored one, the Lord is with you. And she’s, she’s confused and disturbed. says, she doesn’t see herself that way. I think that was surprising for her to have

the angels say that she is favored by God. even just those words. But then he goes on to tell her that she is going to have this baby conceived by the Holy Spirit.

How do you get your mind wrapped around that? Like really, how do you get your mind wrapped around that? Yeah, I’ve shared this story a number of times, so forgive me if you’ve already heard it, listener, but I wrote this in shape by God’s promises. I was reading my little notes in my Bible one time at the bottom of my study Bible and

It said, many will become pregnant without having sexual relations. And I thought, when is that? I don’t remember that prophecy at all. And so I read it again and it said, Mary will become pregnant. And so I had, yeah, like I need to use my glasses when I’m reading those tiny little notes in my Bible. But I had a moment of being disoriented there. Many will become pregnant without sexual relations. Like look at how,

disorienting that was. Well, it was just as disorienting to Mary hearing it. We’re kind of used to the idea of the virgin birth, but for her it was like, wait, what? When? What? How is that going to happen? It was very disorienting. And the fact that this was God’s favor in her life.

I love that that part of the conversation is preserved for us in our Bibles, that this was God’s favor on her because I’m sure it didn’t feel like, I’m sure there were moments at least that it did not feel like God’s favor in her life. And maybe as she’s first hearing this from the angel, she has this sense of self-forgetfulness, like that’s a virtue of her. me, I’m favored, I don’t think of myself in that way. And yet,

Talk to us about what it would have been like to be pregnant in her culture as an unwed young woman.

Well, I know today, in our culture, it’s much more acceptable. But even in cultures overseas that I am in, it is not acceptable. And I have a much better picture of what it would have been like for Mary as a young woman to find herself pregnant and not be able to explain it.

the judgment that would have been passed, I mean, even in her own family, you know, her mother, her father, would they have understood, would, even Joseph wanted to put her away. And so the aloneness that she probably felt.

because she’s been visited by this angel and been told this information, but nobody else has gotten it, except eventually Joseph is, right? The aloneness that she experienced in that must have been really challenging. And to have people whispering behind her back, judging her, that would have been incredibly difficult.

Are there any stories that you can think of in other cultures of a girl being pregnant? like give us something that might help us to relate to Mary a little more.

So in Maasai culture, they believe that the sperm is dirty. And so when a woman becomes pregnant, she’s not allowed to sleep with her husband because it will hurt and dirty the baby and can make the baby weak. that’s their culture. And so when a baby is born,

Often if it’s early, it’ll have a lot of the vernis on it, which is the white cheesy substance that protects a baby’s body from the water that it’s been in for nine months. It will have more of that on there. And when they see that, when a baby is born, they will think that is sperm. And so they will, they immediately think that the wife, the mother has slept around. And so they will beat up the mom.

and they will mark the baby, cut the baby, and mark him as dirty forever. That’s the kind of culture that that harsh, judgmental, assuming culture is, even though this was Maasai culture, that this is very similar in so many ways to what Mary grew up with. and your heart just aches for a woman who has not done anything wrong?

This is just something natural that is experienced and yet she’s wrongfully accused and judged and that’s what Mary’s dealing with. And yeah, I think there probably are parallels, those collectivist cultures where they feel there’s a shame honor component in a collectivist culture where…

If you have, you’ve not only dishonored yourself by sinning, you’ve dishonored your family, the culture. And so they feel this obligation, like who beats up the woman when, when actually the midwives and the other women who are there giving, watching the birth so that is a, it is definitely a collective.

And we don’t understand how much shame that brings on a family and how ostracizing that can be for anybody who brings shame on a family.

It’s horrifying and yet it’s good for us to just kind of get a glimpse into this culture. And Kristi, I’m so thankful that God has brought you to the, is it the Maasai? In what country is that part of? Out of Kenya. You know, you’re doing this great work. so Kristi sets up these community health meetings where they talk through with the women, like, what is based on superstition?

what’s based on just your assumptions and cultural norms versus what’s based on proven science? And so this is a window into working with women in their own cultural settings to talk to them about the God who created them and invite them back into this story. And Mary is a central part of this story. She got to play this role, but like so many women all over the world, including in America,

She’s being unjustly accused I think we’re going to wrap up our conversation now and pick up this story with the angel next time. But Just give us.

a brief response to how can we live like this story is true, that God His favor can be upon us and something can be very disruptive to our lives. I think if you look at the character of Mary and who the angel called her out to be, and we see it even more clearly

when she gives the beautiful Magnificat she knew her God. She knew Him. this is a young woman who understands the God of the universe And I see that as her anchoring and

I think that for us is the same, that when we pursue the heart of God and we know our God, He carries us through the deepest, the darkest storms and holds us and we can rest in that.

I wonder if Mary got to experience God in a really beautiful way as she lived out this surrender before him. next time we’re going to talk about her response to the angel, how she’s going to say, I’m the Lord’s servant. You know, she’s going to open her heart and her life to God’s work in bringing his Messiah through her. But Kristi, I wonder if, have you lived like it’s true?

that God is the one who’s in control, not you. And how has that grown your relationship? You know, talked at the beginning about making this commitment to God, that anytime he showed you, you were the one who was trying to be in control, you were gonna ask for forgiveness. You were gonna surrender that to him. Did that produce in you a certain kind of communing with God?

Yes, and it helped me to really know Him. Control comes from fear. And so to learn what it looks like to trust God, to cling to Him no matter what, has now enabled me to step into the most crazy situations in

what would have been so uncomfortable and scary, and yet I walk into those because God has created in me a heart that trusts Him and says, yes, and He is sustaining me just like He sustained Mary, and that is amazing.

That’s so good. Well, I can’t wait to finish our conversation next time. But for right now, can you tell our guests where they can find She Who Dares? If you go to amazon.com, you can find it. She Who Dares and my name, Kristi Huseby. OK, so we’ll put a link in the show notes. But Kristi, can’t wait to have you back next time.

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