So apparently some folks didn't follow me when I took the left turn and started talking about all the "T" stuff. Let me try again. So T is me hearing that my job at YFC has been terminated (because I just care too much). In other words a traumatic, disturbing, and/ or difficult situation. T+1 is the hour, or day or whatever time fragment you choose desire after finding out that I have lost my job. Make sense?
So my last suggestion was that I am leaning to believe that God is not in the why of the "T", meaning that God did not push the lever that caused my boss to fire me. For me to look for and ask God "why?" may be doing myself an incredible disservice because I can possibly miss out on creating meaning for the event. I think I'm confusing myself, but I am suggesting that the meaning of the "why" in an event only comes in our defining it with what we do with it.
I'm almost ready to erase this because suddenly it seems that I'm trying to make something that is pretty simple complicated, but maybe there is some good that can come out of this car wreck.
If I see God not in the "why" of the event, in other words "for what meaning did God do this" but rather I see God in the T+ moments then perhaps that does a couple of things. First, it allows me to let God "off the hook" so to speak and allows me to trust Him faster.
Second, it allows me to see myself not as a pawn on the board just waiting for someone to give me my next move, a passive boor that hopes that good will come out of an awful event, but rather a willing player (and more importantly a partner) that has a tremendous amount of power in creating the meaning after the event has happened.
So if someone asks, "why would God allow you to get fired?", my answer really needs to be (if I'm following my own script), "well, let's find out." The meaning is to be created and I am a partner in that with God.
I remember one of those "Ah Hah" moments in one of my first counselling classes as I started seminary. Dr. Russell talked about Genesis 1, about the chaos that existed and God moving into the chaos to create something new. Dr. Russell then suggested that as counsellors (pastors, teachers, nurses, any vocation with people as your widget) our job is to move into the chaos that people bring into our offices and together with God, partner to create something new. That was a metaphor that was very powerful then and continues to be today.
Now I know this brings up a whole bunch of theological stuff regarding the ability of God in space and time. I can't touch that right now (both for the sake of time and for the sake of my ability). However, my point and suggestion is this. What if you could let God off the hook with pushing the button that created the awful thing in your life? What if there is a possibility that when that awful thing happened that God said, "oh dear, that's going to leave a terrible mark and I wish it wasn't so."
And what if the meaning of the awful thing has everything to do with what comes T+ and you get to play an active role in it?
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