Efficiency in routing and security are two competitive design issues in wireless sensor networks. The most efficient and least secure routing protocol is shortest path routing. On the other hand, the most secure and least efficient routing protocol is random routing. In this paper, we propose the controlled routing protocol, a mixture of these two routing protocols that maintains a good balance between security and efficiency. Our proposed protocol is based on two principles: if all the messages do not follow the same path, then backtracking to the source node is not possible and when an adversary is very far away from the source and destination locations, then efficiency is more important than security. Based on these principles, we proposed the controlled routing protocol, in which the forwarding node forwards the message either to the node on the shortest path or a random neighbour with a variable probability. The probability of taking the shortest path increases by distance from the source and the destination node. In this paper, we also present our simulation results compared to other routing protocols.