Saturday 5/7/2016 6:49 AM
I often hear people saying that God has a wonderful plan
for their lives. Their concept of what that wonderful plan entails usually
involves them having what they consider to be the perfect life: a good job,
healthy relationships, good health, and so on. They see their life as something
like a road that God has traced into a map book, a unique plan just for them.
The difficulty with that type of thinking is that when life turns ugly and
their wonderful plan isn’t coming to fruition they think they have somehow
“backslidden” and do their best to get back onto the road of God’s will.
When I look at the world and people’s lives it seems to be
quite haphazard. Success and failure, sickness and health, and safety and
tragedy all seem to visit a person randomly rather than causally. A person with
little skill or experience may be at the right place at the right time and get
their dream job while someone else, with more talent, and experience galore is
passed by because they are not rightly connected with those making decisions.
One of two people walking next to each other down a sidewalk stops to tie his
shoe while the other continues on and is killed by a collapsing crane at a
construction site. It is difficult to explain that kind of randomness in the
world. Christians often say it was God’s will but that kind of talk rings
hollow to those affected by the tragedy or by those who do not believe. After
all, what kind of malicious being is that kind of a god who would allow such a
thing?
Our universe and the world in which we live seem to be
chaotic, driven by randomness and chance. As one who believes in God, how am I
to live and cope in such a world and maintain my faith? If my life isn’t mapped
out perfectly, but driven by randomness, what path am I too take? Joyce Rupp
writes these words in her book The Cup of
Our Life. “Guidance is about hearing the inner voice in us that keeps us
closely connected with God’s ways, giving us direction for our lives. It’s not
that our lives are all mapped out for us by God. The path is rarely a clear, visible,
neatly defined one. No, rather Divine Wisdom helps us to discover, each step of
the way, how we are to be a loving person in our world with our chipped, flawed
condition.” I believe Rupp would argue that I do not have a specific path to
follow in order to be in God’s will. If I remain closely connected to God I can
choose whatever path I wish, if I walk that path with love for others, knowing
that God accompanies me along the way. That kind of perspective is one that
provides a great deal of freedom and peace.
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