There are at least two major competing views for God's direction in your life among Christians. In one view, God has exact opinions about who you should marry, what school you should go to, how long you should stay at each job, and where you should go to church. In fact, in this view God may even have an opinion about what clothes you should be wearing on a particular day (because a certain witnessing t-shirt may be just the thing someone needs to join your church.) Let's call this "View 1."
In the other view (which I won't discuss beyond this brief introduction, although it is the one to which I subscribe), God has a will for your life. He wants you to be kind, forgiving, courageous and humble. In other words, his will is that you do good and hate evil. However, he wants you to make the wisest decisions given the information you've got. Let's call this "View 2"
Let me illustrate just briefly with an example. Suppose you are choosing between 3 universities to attend. UnderView 1, God has a perfect choice for you. If you don't seek to know what that choice is (i.e. "His will on the matter"), then you will end up with His "second best." The way you seek to know God's will is through a combination of Bible reading, circumstances, the prompting of the Spirit and seeking wisdom/wise counsel. Some may suggest more mystical approaches like looking for confirmations or inner promptings.
In stark constrast, In View 2 God doesn't care which place you go to so long as you pursue His will (i.e. to be kind/courageous/humble etc.) at that location. Now, it may happen that one of these schools may be doing something wrong. For example, they may be evicting people from low-income housing and forcing them on to the street to make room for you in the dorms. If this was the case, then once you find out you would know it isn't God's will that you go to that place.
Why is View 1 so appealling? Well, first of all it seems pretty logical. God knows everything, so He knows the decisions that would maximize my happiness. He knows the woman who is the best possible match for me and He knows which school she is going to, so He would want me to go to that school. That would be His first choice, because it would make me most happy. Or perhaps, we can put this in an even more selfless manner. God knows the opportunities for service at each school. He knows which one I can do the most good at. He would want me to dothe most good, so that would be His first choice for me. If God has a first choice for me, then obviously He will want to communicate this information to me.
Unfortunately this whole train of logic rest on one questionable, unspoken assumption: God will supernaturally help me (more specifically, give me the information I need) if I want the best.
I agree that God knows much more about the world than I do, and I agree that the information He knows could make our lives better or more productive for the kingdom if He shared it with us. However, let's consider a few empirically verifiable questions by looking to our own expeirences for answers.
Why is View 1 so appealling? Well, first of all it seems pretty logical. God knows everything, so He knows the decisions that would maximize my happiness. He knows the woman who is the best possible match for me and He knows which school she is going to, so He would want me to go to that school. That would be His first choice, because it would make me most happy. Or perhaps, we can put this in an even more selfless manner. God knows the opportunities for service at each school. He knows which one I can do the most good at. He would want me to dothe most good, so that would be His first choice for me. If God has a first choice for me, then obviously He will want to communicate this information to me.
Unfortunately this whole train of logic rest on one questionable, unspoken assumption: God will supernaturally help me (more specifically, give me the information I need) if I want the best.
I agree that God knows much more about the world than I do, and I agree that the information He knows could make our lives better or more productive for the kingdom if He shared it with us. However, let's consider a few empirically verifiable questions by looking to our own expeirences for answers.
First, "Does God always give Christians the information they need to maximize their happiness?"
Initially you might answer, "Of course not, they need to really want to serve God before that happens." So I would rephrase my question. "Does God always give Christians the information they need to maximize their happiness, if, from the bottom of their heart they want to serve him?" You might still accuse me of setting up a straw man. You might reply, "God doesn't just care about our happiness, He cares about our character. Sometimes His desire to increase our character or increase His kingdom conflicts with His desire to maximize our happiness." So let me rephrase the question again, "Does God always give Christiasn the information they need to maximize their contributions to the kingdom if they want to serve Him from the bottom of their heart?"
Even with this nuanced version of the question, I think we have to say no. Let's consider just a few examples:
If you are a Christian business man, and you want to give your profits to the poor, is God going to supernaturally deliver to you information that will keep your business afloat? No! There are many Christian business men who have the best intentions, but their businesses die. Their intention is to serve God by helping the poor - why didn't God help them out?
If you were a Christian missionary years ago travelling on a boat to a foreign land to witness to the poor, did God tell you about the importance of vitamin C so you didn't get scurvy? No. Many travellers died (even the Christian ones with best intentions) because they didn't know how important it was to have some orange slices. Did God tell these missionaries about the communicable diseases that they would bring to the people they witnessed to, or that they would pick up in the tropical climates? No! Many Christians died, and killed others - despite their honourable intentions - because they didn't know about germs, parasites and bugs.
However, despite these blatantly obvious examples, we still seem to think that God will communicate to us information that will help us serve him, or maximize our happiness. Why? First, almost every evangelical saturates their speech with this language:
"God told me ..."
"I'm really seeking the Lord on what I should do ..."
"I really have a peace about it ..."
"I know that this is God's will for my life ..."
"I was called to this ..."
"Don't worry, God will undertake if it's in His will ..."
"If it's meant to happen, it will happen ..."
In fact, I would go so far as to say that Christians (from the layman to the CEOs of Christian parachurch organizations) are careless about their language.
Second, and more importantly, we continue to 'testify' about God's supernatural provision of information. A few days ago, I was in a meeting and a good man (I don't know him well, but I have no reason to doubt his integrity or wisdom) with a high position in the company began to give his 'story/testimony.' He talked about how he had gone through very difficult financial straits. God had called him to BC, but that required taking a second mortgage to pay for a second house. Although it was very stressful at the time, it eventually all worked out. Thus he learned: "You grow as you trust." My point is this: usually, the only people we allow to speak from the podium are those for whom 'things worked out.' We want to be encouraged. THerefore, only the winners are allowed on the stage. What about the thousands of Christians in the USA that "trusted" God for the first mortgage and yet find themselves homeless because they went bankrupt? Those that take the stage at churches and Christian conferences to talk to us are the ones that were successful in some way. They didn't become bankrupt or they didn't lose their family or their faith. But there are plenty of Christians for whom those bad things did happen.
There are ministers who give their life to answer difficult questions about the faith, who lose their faith never to return. There are missionaries who die in a car accident on the way to the airport to serve God.
We do 'grow as we trust.' But we don't grow when we trust God to 'work things out when we step out in blind faith' or when we trust God 'to supernaturally give us information we need to make life decisions.' We grow as we trust God that His way is better. We grow as we act and trust principles like: stuff doesn't make us happy; accomplishments don't make us a better person.
But why do we believe that God will supernaturally give us the information we need to make decisions when there are blantantly obvious counter examples (mentioned above)? By constantly hearing 'testimonies' from the successful, we reinforce the idea that if you are faithful, things will work out (your ministry will grow, you will find the best wife, your family will be protected, you will find the answers you need for your faith, etc). It is the same effect as the pyramid scheme salesmen. You go to a Usana conference or a Herbal Life conference and they talk about how they used to be regular shmoes, but they struggled and reached the top, and so that means you can too. Except it doesn't mean that at all. It just means that some people will win. However, by putting only the winners on stage we get a false perception of how the world actually is.
In other words ... the language we teach our kids, and anecdotal testomonies (i.e. teaching by examples, rather than painting pictures of the world that are statistically accurate) has allowed us to convince people that "God will give you the information you need to maximize your service to him."
What do you think?
No comments:
Post a Comment