Does God Really Have a Plan?

"God has a plan" is an assertion many Christians make, especially during times of crisis and pain. Sadly, it is what is sometimes said when another has experienced a tragic loss. It is a popular answer to the question, "why did God let this happen?" Jeremiah 29:11 is often identified as a favorite verse, "for surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope." Those who proclaim "God has a plan" are expressing faith (1) in God and (2) in God working in life's events. The statement is used to bring reassurance in the face of anxiety and fear.

But does God really have a plan?

To speak of God's plan is to speak of God's sovereignty. It means that God is all powerful and in control. Thus, everything that happens must be God's will and God's doing ... even the tragic, painful experiences of life ... because God is sovereign. 

But is everything that happens God's will?

We cannot speak of God's sovereignty without also speaking of human freewill. Freewill refers to our ability to make choices. Freewill is what distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom. Our ability to choose gives us the ability to influence what happens. As my professor used to say, freewill allows us to be the partial architects of our own lives.

Freewill says we have some degree of control over what happens. God's sovereignty says God determines what happens. Which is it: freewill or God's sovereignty?

Freewill requires that we receive what we choose ... even when what we choose is outside of "God's will." Choices have consequences or they are not really choices. Because God is sovereign, God could force our choice, but then we would be mechanical puppets, not humans with freewill. Because God is sovereign, God could override the consequences of our choices, but that also nullifies our freewill.

So which is it: human freewill or God's sovereignty?

The question is a typical Western question. Our scientific-based, dualistic thinking makes us think in terms of either-or. It must be one or the other. Therein is the problem.

Why must the answer be either human freewill or divine sovereignty? Why can't it be both? What would it look like for life to be shaped by both our freewill and God's sovereignty?

The ancient rabbi's taught that, in granting humans freewill, God shriveled up. The word they used is the same word used to describe a raisin. The idea was that God restrained his divine sovereignty (power) to respect freewill. God could override our will but chooses not to do so. God gives us what we choose, even when what we choose is destructive to us.

Let me say the same thing using different terms. Because God is sovereign, God is not limited in what God can do. After all, God is all powerful (omnipotent). But God chooses to limit the use of Divine power to respect what we choose. In other words, God chooses to limit God's Self. God chooses to be self-limited in order to respect our freewill. 

God's self-limitation does not mean that God sacrifices God's sovereignty. Rather, it means that God exercises that sovereignty differently from what we commonly think.

As I said above, God's sovereignty, in our thinking, means everything that happens is God's will. This is the idea embodied in the belief that God has a plan. Freewill means God does not make everything happen. What we choose is a major factor in what happens. God respects our choices, giving us the consequences of what we choose. So God exercises his sovereignty in some way other than making things happen.

In the rabbi's thinking, God's sovereignty means God works in the midst of what we choose, even when what we choose is not "God's will." God does not abandon us. God promises to work in whatever happens for our good. The Apostle Paul expressed this idea in Romans 8:28, "For we know that in all things God works for good for those who love him." The good for which God works is identified in verse 29, "to be conformed to the image of his Son."

God's sovereignty is expressed in transforming our experiences, especially the painful ones. God works to transform the impact on us of what happens to us. God redeems life's pain into an occasion for us to grow spiritually into the likeness of Christ. Nothing is outside of God's sovereign power. That means, nothing is outside of God's ability to transform and redeem for our good. Nothing is wasted. (Is not this truth reflected in Jesus' death on the cross?)

But here's the key. We must choose (human freewill) to be open to what God would teach us and to how God would work through the situation (God's sovereignty). God does not automatically transform and redeem our experiences. We must choose to accept how God would transform them. We must be willing to grow through our experience of pain. The two - freewill and God's sovereignty - work together.

So, does God have a plan? I suggest that God has a purpose rather than a plan. God's purpose is to grow us up spiritually into the likeness of Jesus. And nothing will keep God from fulfilling that purpose in our lives. That's God's sovereignty at work!

Thanks be to God!

Close to God

I often hear people talk about wanting to be "closer to God" or feeling "distant from God." Sermons call us "back to God," implying that we had wandered away and were no longer close to God. Some speak of "feeling closer to God" because of a spiritual retreat. We Methodists even sing a hymn entitled "Close to Thee." The refrain repeats the prayer "close to thee" four times, one after the other.

What do we mean when we talk about being "close to God?" The question is framed as an issue of distance: how close to, how far away from. It is generally about feelings. "I feel ..." or "I don't feel ..." It implies that something is missing or lacking. It expresses a desire to experience God or to have some kind of God-related experience. It reflects our perception (generally a negative perception) of our spiritual situation or condition at the time.

Do we really know what we are wanting when we talk about being "close to God?"

I would like to reframe the question. The issue is not one of distance ... or of feelings or something being lacking, for that matter.

The witness of scripture, both in the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian scriptures, is that God is with us. One of our names for God is Emmanuel, meaning "God with us." The Israelites in the wilderness were instructed to build a tabernacle "so that I may dwell among you," Exodus 25:8. Once the tabernacle was completed, "the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle," Exodus 40:34. God dwelt in the midst of the people. The Temple, which Solomon built to replace the tabernacle, was known as the dwelling place of God among God's people. Drawing on the tabernacle image, the writer of John's gospel spoke of God "pitching his tent among us" (original meaning) as the Word became flesh, John 1:14. In the Farewell Discourses of John, Jesus spoke of the Spirit: "he will abide with you and he will be in you," John 14:17. He also promised "we (the Father and I) will come to them and make our home with them," John 14:23. On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit was poured out on Jesus' followers, indwelling them and empowering them, Acts 2:1-21. At the heart of John's vision of the New Heaven and the New Earth in Revelation 21-22 was God's presence in the midst of God's people: "See, the home (literally: tabernacle) of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them," Revelation 21:3. The psalmist spoke of God's presence with us as being inescapable: "Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?", Psalm 139:7-12.

Given the witness of scripture, I would reframe our struggle. It is not about distance. God is as close to us as our breath. God lives with us and in us. How much "closer" can God be?

Rather, it seems to me, the issue is about awareness ... our awareness of God's presence ... our awareness of the Spirit's movement within us ... our awareness of the Spirit's teaching us and guiding us ... our awareness of God's work in our lives. The issue is being attuned to the inner dimension of our lives, the heart. The issue is training ourselves to look for God and God's work. The issue is learning to recognize God's presence.

Note my emphasis on training and learning. Awareness can be cultivated and learned. And we are not alone in our efforts. God is not in hiding. Remember how God came looking for the couple in the Garden when they hid from God? God always loves first, reaching out to connect with us. God wants to know us. God wants to share God's Self and God's life with us. God wants to share our lives. God wants us to know the presence of the Risen Christ. God wants us to know the movement of the Spirit. God is here, with us, quietly calling and inviting.

For me, a key tool for training myself to be aware is meditation, using breath prayer. In meditation, we seek to go beyond words and thoughts. We seek to go into inner stillness and silence. I generally struggle to quieten my thoughts and clear my mind. (Our thinking reflects our desire to be in control. It is our ego holding on to control rather than resting in God and God's grace, simply trusting God.) But even that struggle (do I call it failure?) becomes the Spirit's call. My awareness of my busy mind becomes an invitation to refocus. Following my breathing, I pray, "Fill me; cleanse me." My objective in my meditation is not to be successful in meditating. Rather, my objective is to express my intent to focus on God and my desire to live with awareness of God in my life. My attempts at meditation place me in a position for the Spirit to work, cultivating that awareness within me.

There is much in life that works against our awareness of God: our full schedules and busyness, our to-do lists with their focus on doing and accomplishing, our self-reliance, our desire to be in control, being tired physically and emotionally (exhausted?), our lack of quiet time without external stimulation, our lack of genuine play, our superficial relationships.

I wonder: can we learn to be aware of God if we don't build into our schedules some personal time dedicated to focusing on God or our relationship with God? Attending worship and participating in church activities are not enough. They are no substitute for the personal time.

So, given my musings, let me suggest: Don't pray to feel closer to God. Pray to be more aware of God and God's work in your life. Then practice a time of focusing just on God, resting in God's love. But watch out what you pray for!!!

Epiphany, 2020

The Twelve Days of Christmas are over, giving way to the Feast of Epiphany, January 6.

By now, Christmas decorations are packed up and stored away, waiting for another year. Christmas celebrations and travel are over. We've moved on. Some of us moved on as we followed the cultural calendar. The gifts were barely unwrapped and the mess cleaned up before we were already talking about the New Year, the next celebration on the calendar. Others of us held on longer, seeking to follow the liturgical calendar with its twelve day reflection on the meaning of Christmas. Celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas is indeed hard when everyone around you has packed Christmas away for another year, when everyone and everything around you has moved on.

As we move on from our Christmas celebration, I pray we do not move on from the hope Christmas proclaims. Hope is about what will be, but is not yet. Hope calls us to rejoice in the longed-for fulfillment of God's promises. It calls us to pursue that fulfillment today, in the here and now, in what is. Our Christian hope is not something to be boxed up and stored away to be used some other time. It is to be lived today. It must be lived today or it is not really hope.

I identify two dimensions in the hope Christmas proclaims. The two are inseparable. One leads to the other. The other is dependent on the one. Christmas stirs the hope of God-shaped lives that help to create a God-shaped world.

Christmas, in celebrating the birth of Jesus, proclaims the mystery of the incarnation, revealing what God is doing in it. Christmas celebrates how God wrapped the Divine Self in human flesh ... how God became what we are so that we can become what He is (i.e., possessing his character of self-giving, servant love) ... how God shared our experience of life so that we can share His quality of life (i.e., eternal life ... here, now, not after we die). The incarnation is about God's work of creating God-shaped lives ... God's work of creating a family of sons and daughters who possess His nature and live his ways ... God's work of creating Spirit-transformed and Spirit-empowered children who are His partners in creating a God-shaped world.

The ancient Hebrew prophets proclaimed this hope of a God-shaped world: the lion and the lamb lying down together ... the sword and spear beaten into plow shares ... a time when the nations turn to Jerusalem (i.e., God) for instruction ... a time when negotiation and arbitration replaces domination ... a time when war will no longer ravage the nations ... a time when all people will enjoy the abundance of the peaceable kingdom.  In short, a God-shaped world ... a new world to replace the fractured world created by our fear-based thinking and living.

And that's where Epiphany comes in. The Feast of Epiphany celebrates the arrival of the magi as told in Matthew 2. It celebrates the inclusion of the Gentiles in the Kingdom. It anticipates a oneness restored (see Ephesians 2:11ff - Christ is our peace, breaking down the dividing wall). It, like the Christmas celebration, proclaims hope ... hope of a God-shaped world.

Epiphany celebrates light ... light that shines in the darkness ... light that drives the darkness away ... light that enables us to see what we could not see before ... light that reveals what we were too blind to see ... light that helps us know God and the ways of God ... light that shows us the way. The prologue to John's gospel, John 1:1-18, identifies the Word made flesh as that light. "In him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ... The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. ... The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. ... No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son who has made him known," (John 1:4-5, 14, 18).

Jesus is the Light we celebrate on Epiphany. As we walk in his light, learning and living the ways of God that he lived and taught, the Spirit transforms our lives into God-shaped lives. Our lives reflect his light. We live as God's partners in creating a God-shaped world.

God-shaped lives. A God-shaped world. Certainly, such hope cannot be boxed up and packed away. It must be lived ... here and now, in what is.

The Fifth Day of Christmas

The developers of the liturgical calendar wisely created a twelve day period to celebrate and contemplate the birth of Christ: December 25 - January 5. The Western Church celebrates the birth of Jesus on December 25, then marks the visit of the magi and/or the beginning of Jesus' public ministry on Epiphany, January 6. The Eastern Church celebrates the birth of Jesus on January 6. The twelve days of the Christmas season come on the heels of the four Sundays of the Advent Season whose focus is the coming of Christ. Both seasons are times of reflection, calling us to reflect on the wonder of Christ's birth and, therein, to reflect on the mystery of the incarnation. 

In contrast, the cultural calendar begins its promotion before Thanksgiving Day. Once Christmas Day is over, it has already moved on to focus on the next holiday, New Years Day. Its Christmas focus is full of hurry, not stillness. It is full of busyness, not reflection. It focuses on sentimentality, not mystery. Its objective is economic gain, not relationship with God. It is over in a flurry of unwrapping of gifts.

May this fifth day of Christmas lead you into deeper awe and wonder as you reflect on God's gift to us, God's own Self, wrapped in human flesh as a helpless, vulnerable infant. Of course, this benediction assumes you are following the liturgical calendar, not the cultural one.

4th Sunday of Advent, December 22, 2019 - A Voice Crying Out in Prayer

Sometimes the cry is that of a lone voice;

            sometimes, the voices of many swelling together as one.

The cry is a cry of pain and suffering,

            expressing powerless desperation,

            calling out for escape, for relief.

The cry is one a deep longing –

a longing rooted deep in the core of one’s being -

            a longing for peace and wholeness, 

a longing  for God.

The cry is a mournful cry,

laced with a sadness that shrouds the soul

as one grieves what was, but is no more,

            what never was, but should have been.

But the cry is more than a cry.  It is a prayer -

            a calling out to one whose nature is self-giving Love.

And as a prayer, the cry is an expression of confidence

            in a love that will not let us go,

            in a love that never turns its back on us,

            in a love that always works to transform and bless

even at great cost to Self.

Self-giving love is the heart of God – and such love is a mark of the people of God.

During this Advent season, we remember that we are a people of love. 

3rd Sunday of Advent, December 15, 2019 - A Voice Cries Out ... as a Prelude to Joy

Sometimes the cry is that of a lone voice;

            sometimes, the voices of many swelling together as one.

The cry is a mournful cry,

full of sorrow and grief,

laced with a sadness that shrouds the soul

as one grieves what was, but is no more,

            what never was, but should have been.

But the cry is more than a mournful cry.  It is a prayer – a calling out to One who is compassionate and gracious.

And as a prayer, the cry brings the one who cries out into the presence of the One

who binds up the brokenhearted,

who brings release to the captive,

who comforts those who mourn.

As a prayer, the cry opens the heart of the one who cries out –

opens that one to God and to the love of God,

            opens that one to experience the goodness of God in the midst of sorrow,

opens that one to the work of God in the midst of the darkest night.

As a prayer, the cry is a prelude to joy.

            Joy is the response of the heart to the goodness of God. 

Joy is a mark of the people of God –

            joy rooted in the experience of God and God’s love,

            joy unaffected by life’s circumstances,

joy that heals the soul and transforms the spirit.

During this Advent season, we remember that we are a people of joy.

2nd Sunday of Advent, December 8, 2019 - A Voice Cries Out ... for Peace

Sometimes the cry is that of a lone voice;

            sometimes, the voices of many swelling together as one.

The cry expresses a deep longing – a longing rooted deep in the core of one’s being.

            It is a longing

–        for that which is missing

–        for that which has been lost

–        for that which has never been, but should be – could be.

The cry expresses the heart’s deep longing for peace –

            for the absence of turmoil and confusion

for the absence of suspicion and distrust

            for the absence of misunderstandings and personal attacks

for the absence of hurts and unresolved issues

            for the absence of conflict and strife

for the absence of division and alienation

            for the absence of violence and its destruction.

The cry expresses the heart’s deep longing for wholeness –

            for freedom from fear and worry

            for freedom from criticism, judgment, and rejection

            for freedom to live beyond pretense and superficiality

            for freedom to offer one’s self in relationship to another

            for freedom to explore and discover, to learn and grow

            for freedom to live fully with creativity and joy.

The cry expresses the heart’s deep longing - 

            a longing for place that is safe

a longing for home

a longing  for God.

And so the cry is more than a longing cry.  It is a prayer -

            a calling out to One who understands,

            a turning to One who is compassionate,

            a trusting of One who comforts.

And as a prayer, the cry leads us to that for which we long –  to peace

to a peace deep within

to a peace the world cannot give

to a peace that cannot be explained.

As a prayer, the cry leads us to God – and brings us home.

Peace is a mark of the people of God –

            peace as one rests in the grace, the forgiveness, the acceptance of God

            peace within the depths of one’s own heart – cleansed of the poison of guilt and shame and self-hate

            peace as life is shared deeply and meaningfully in spiritual friendship with another.

Peace is the mark of the people of God –

            who long for a world at peace – shaped by the truth of God

            who live as peacemakers in the world seeking to bring to reality the time in which

                        the wolf shall live with the lamb,

                        the calf and lion will lie down together

                        and the earth is full of the knowledge of the LORD.

During this Advent season, we remember that we are a people of peace.