I've been contemplating different things as of late, one of which is meaning. My view of providence (God's interaction with the world and us) has been all over the map as of the last decade or so. One of the books that is on my list to finish is Terry Thiessen's "Providence & Prayer." Dr. Thiessen was a professor at Providence Seminary when I did my post-secondary work there and he is a theological genius (not on his business card but likely tattooed somewhere on his body). It was his course that really propelled my interest in providence and as I work with people who are hurting it is a topic that often will bubble to the surface.
In short I struggle with the idea that God is active in our daily events. Maybe that's not it. Maybe I struggle with the idea that God organizes daily events. Truth be told I can really be drawn to the idea that God is distant is His interactions with us. It makes things simpler in many ways and strangely I find it comforting.
Often I hear people ask the question, "why would this (insert troubling, tragic, disappointing, life altering event here) happen?" This makes sense of course because naturally we want some form of meaning to appear since our body systems are in the business of trying to keep us safe. Having a "why" answered may allow us to avoid catastrophe in the future and/ or it may insulate us and allow us to continue feeling that we're immune to awful things popping into our lives.
Quite frankly I don't know if God "allows" things into our lives. Somehow I feel like God allowing it and God giving us the goods are connected at the hip. I think I get that it's different. I mean as a parent I can allow something to happen without initiating it like watching my son walk around with a clothes hamper on his head. "That's going to end badly", I think. But maybe bumping into the wall will help him understand that it's likely a poor idea. Plus it's cheap entertainment. But if I know that Cooper will fall down the stairs and cause himself significant harm I'm (likely) to stop that from happening. I don't know my point in that but perhaps you see my struggle? If you can't it's this: I feel like God "allowing" something to come into our lives with full knowledge of the devastation it causes is the same as God pushing it on us. And it makes me very uncomfortable.
I'm no theologian and many people can slap me sideways with Scripture that may lay out their counter to that proposal. I'm fine with that and I'll be the first to say I have not done exhaustive exegetical work on this.
In some ways I guess I've come to the place (which could be very temporal) that the "why" is completely insignificant and if I could be so vulnerable I would lean to the side of suggesting that God isn't in the Point T "why." I do believe that He is in the T+1, 2 and so forth "why" though.
Let me quickly explain this. T is the event (accident, loss, diagnosis, etc) and T+ are moments post-event.
I have run out of time to finish this off so I'll let this stew (more for myself than anyone actually reading this) and catch up soon.
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