What’s God doing in your life today?
Perhaps not as much as you think.
Many Christians believe they are the focal point of God’s loving obsession and that he fixates on them 24/7. Certainly there are Bible verses that foster this perspective but it probably needs to be counter-balanced with the realization that—to borrow the title of a recent bestseller—He’s Just Not That Into You.
I mean this in the way suggested by James McGrath on his blog, Exploring Our Matrix:
“If something happens to a religious believer that doesn’t immediately make sense in term of being cared for by a loving and all-powerful God, ways are found to explain away the apparent contradiction. God is just testing you or allowing you to be tested. Satan is trying to trip you up because you love God, and/or God loves you, so much. God is showing his great confidence in you because he won’t put you through anything you can’t handle …
“I propose the alternative explanation that “God just isn’t that into you” in a somewhat facetious, tongue-in-cheek manner. But in a sense that is what it can feel like when one goes from thinking of God as an anthropomorphic heavenly ’significant other’ to acknowledging that the universe and/or God’s plan for it may well not revolve around you.”
We can’t help being the center of attention inside our heads but it’s childish to extend this egocentrism to the natural world or the divine will. Infants demand everything revolve around them; adults understand priorities.
It’s not that God is distant or disinterested; consider the cross. Rather, his care doesn’t imply constant cocooning, nor does his love require meddling in the minutia of our mundane lives—or inevitable deaths.
Stage mom or Jedi mentor?
I’m suggesting God is less like a micro-managing stage mom and more like a Jedi mentor. Counseling according to principle and precept is more his style than manipulating circumstances. He allows us to learn through trial and error with its attendant failure, suffering and pain.
I also contend the Lord seldom interferes with the normal workings of cause and effect, which he established as the ground rules of reality. This explains why Christians aren’t spared the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune; why cancer rates and auto fatalities are the same among saints and atheists; why most prayers go unanswered.
I’m not saying God doesn’t intervene at times on our behalf or grant specific requests, but I doubt he does so nearly as often as some presume. (“Daily miracles” are, after all, oxymoronic.) Is this a lack of faith or a valid viewpoint?
Before you decide, read John Boykin’s insightful book The Gospel of Coincidence. See if his biblical arguments and practical observations don’t make more sense of life as we experience it.
4 Comments
July 19, 2009 at 1:46 am
Good thoughts Mike. Patty and I (on a long drive home) were discussing the disapointments we have had with God over the years and the affects that has had on our faith. Ultimately it comes down to God is God and, in the total scheme of things, I don’t have much to say about it. I think all of us as believers have an expectation of how we think God should interface with our life. When He doesn’t meet our expectation it places us at a crossroad…Do I acknowledge God as God or do I let my faith falter. Perhaps ultimately that is the definition of a successful faith walk.
July 17, 2009 at 11:56 am
Dear Mike:
This makes a lot of sense – I have been thinking a lot about this particularily in the realm of the worship music in churches and radio. It seems that our focus has become dominantly focused on us, and not so much on God’s unfathomable character, attributes and His plan for the world that may not revolve around us!!
July 21, 2009 at 8:41 am
How would man behave if God were to constantly reveal Himself? Would he really be free? If man were constantly made aware that he was standing in the King’s presence, could he go against His will? If God’s existence were constantly apparent, this awareness would make man a prisoner. This is one reason why God created a world which folows natural laws, and in this way he conceals Himself. Thus “The world follows its natural pattern, and the fools who do evil will eventually be judged. God withdrew, as it were, and allowed the world to operate according to the laws of nature which he created. We have free will. He’s not managing our lives by the minute, we are.
July 21, 2009 at 8:58 am
Many people say that they would believe if only they could witness some sign or miracle. Sinai showed us that even this was not enough if people do not want to believe. We can begin to understand one of the most basic restrictions that God imposes upon Himself. He is a hidden God, and does not reveal Himself. This is required by man’s
psychology as well as God’s very purpose in creation. God only reveals Himself to such people whose faith is so great that the revelation makes no difference in his belief. I’ve come to a spiritual revelation in my life in the past few months and have changed in total my position in understanding God.