This Sunday's sermon was the inspiration for my blog. Pastor Dave said something about the statement "God has a wonderful plan for you life." And I have to agree with him. Telling someone this does seem like a bit of false advertising. Because God's plan for us does not always seem wonderful. Sometimes it is hard, or even very painful.
Still, he caught me out when he asked us "Do you believe God has a wonderful plan for your life?" I said yes. And while I agree with his points about the whole thing, I do have to tell you something.
I believe that God has a plan for my life, and I do believe that it has been wonderful. Even with a dying son. And I'd like to take some time right now to share with you why that is. Christians call that a "testimony." I'm just going to say that it is the story of my life, and how God has been there through it.
Before I go on, I'm going to get a bit... I believe the word is "metaphysical?" Please forgive me if this sort of thing just gives you a head ache. My mind truly works this way, all the stuff I'm writing is really what I think about. So I hope you don't mind me talking about it. And if you are not interested in all this theological/metaphysical/physics/philosophy stuff, just skip it! The story of my life will actually be in the Part Two of this that I am writing. So, just go straight there.
Further, I'm going to add a little disclaimer here. Some of what I am going to say is NOT actually found in the Bible. I want to make sure that you know that some of these thoughts are my own, or others. I'm not claiming God directly gave me any of this stuff. So feel free to take it all with a grain of salt.
For many, many years there has been a disagreement between various groups of Protestants. And I gotta say, I think it is a silly disagreement. I think it is the result of the fact that when we try to understand God, our puny little brains just don't get it. We often label these things "paradoxical," because two things that seem opposite both appear true at the same time. I think that is because we don't truly understand the two things in the first place. Hence they "seem" opposite. ;)
So, I'd like to affirm that "yes, I believe that God has a plan." And that He knows what is going to happen in the future. At the same time, I believe that I do have free will. Which is what is often hard to understand. If God already knows exactly what I'm going to do, how did I have a choice? Yeah, it is a paradox. I think it is because we don't understand any of the following things: "free will," time, and God.
There was a man who had written a book who was on TV the other day. He was a physicist and his book was about time and the difficulties physicists' find with it. One thing in particular he said that I thought was so interesting was how they were trying to understand how we could remember the past, but not the future. Yeah, YOU HEARD ME RIGHT. Why can't we REMEMBER the FUTURE. Which is a ridiculous question to those of us who just take time for granted and for whom our brain just hurts when we hear a question like that. But for physicists who actually understand Eistein's mind blowing break through about relativity, it makes sense.
It makes sense to me too! It is possible to remember the future, but only for God. The rest of us have limitations put on us.
I think that if we could understand God, and time, it all would make perfect sense. We would be able to see how He is outside of time, looking in. And inside of time, we have and make choices. And outside of time, He already knows what they are. Cause He can remember the future. In fact, He can see it all wholly together, past, present and future.
Let me add to that. There is this thing, in physics (don't let me pretend to really understand much about physics. It is totally beyond me. But I find it fascinating, as long as I personally don't have to figure out the equations.) that says that an observer changes the outcome of events. I haven't a clue how they came up with that one. But when they try to observe what is happening inside atoms, with electrons, or even getting smaller than that, it is problematic.
Let me say, that I think that God is the ultimate Observer. Not that He is outside of creation, just looking in. He is IN creation, in the form of His Spirit. And when things have "happened" in my life, even when they are "small" details, things where I seem to see God's hand, I don't think that is because God is doing what Bruce did in the movie "Bruce Almighty." I don't think he is simultaneously fielding millions of prayers by clicking yes or no the those "prayer emails."
I think that God is outside of time, observing it and understanding every event, and just by being God, He puts events in the right. I'm NOT saying He is an impersonal force. I'm just saying that His power is like that observer who just changes events BY BEING THERE. I think God's presence here, through His Spirit, puts God's plan into place, just BY BEING THERE. And it is His very nature that does it, and assures that things are changed for the better. I don't know if that makes any sense to you, but it does to me.
If this doesn't make sense to you, or if I lost you by the second paragraph, I apologise and thank you for still reading this and indulging me in my ruminations. Yeah, I think about God quite a bit. He FASCINATES me. I only wish I could understand even a fraction of it all. But I'm glad that though I can't understand it, I can KNOW Him. I can talk to Him, and just be with Him.
You might feel that this was all just a big rabbit trail, and in a way it was. You didn't really need to read all that to hear the story of how God has been in my life. But I figured that on a very deep level, you might get an understanding of how I think it is that God has a plan and how I also make both good and bad choices, which are completely MY choices, and how God, as the ultimate Observer/Participant assures that even with all the bad choices that are made, His ultimate plan remains in place. If it didn't do that for you, I apologise again, and will end here before I waste any more of your time.
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