The Sovereignty of God

I have always said I believe in the sovereignty of God. I have never had a problem with the concept of God being sovereign, and I still don’t. I still totally believe it. However, I truly don’t get it. Its such a massive subject with so so so many different debates to be had and questions to be asked. I am not attempting here to provide an argument for or against the sovereignty of God, this is simply a few questions that have crossed my mind recently.

Let me start with a quote from John Piper’s book, “Desiring God”, as it was whilst reading this that many of these questions were brought to my attention:

“The chief end of God is to glorify God and enjoy himself forever. The reason this may sound strange is that we are more accustomed to think about our duty than God’s design. And when we do ask about God’s design we are too prone to describe it with ourselves at the centre of God’s affections. We may say, for example, His design is to redeem the world. Or to save sinners. Or to restore creation. Or the like. But God’s saving designs are penultimate, not ultimate. Redemption, salvation and restoration are not God’s ultimate goal. These He performs for the sake of something greater; namely the enjoyment He has in glorifying Himself.”

This, by the way, is the first paragraph of the first chapter! It totally blew my mind! What is this saying? Surely God’s ultimate aim is not to glorify Himself. Wouldn’t that make him arrogant and proud? The Bible surely teaches us to do the complete opposite of this. I have to say, that by reading on in the chapter, this concept now sits a lot more comfortably with me than when I first read that paragraph, and lots of those initial questions were answered. I will not go into this right now, but you can always read the book if you want to look deeper at this. However, it has raised a number of other questions which, whilst not directly related to the above, do stem from it. I am going to focus mainly on one big topic here, and may write more about my other questions in a future post.

Gods Plan

In my experience, Christians are reminded regularly that God has a plan for them. The Bible does also say this (Jeremiah 29:11 – though this message was actually for the exiles of Judah, but lets not get into that!). My question is, “Is God’s plan for us limited to that which will help to fulfil his plan for mankind, and therefore ultimately to that which glorifies Him?” In other words, if I get to a hypothetical crossroads in my life, where I have a decision to make, has God definitely already planned which way I go? Is this true even if the decision will in no way affect His Kingdom, or His “Salvation plan”. As Rachel and I say, does God care whether I choose a tuna sandwich for lunch today as opposed to some other delicious filling? Plus, if all this is already in God’s plan, and as John Piper says, God’s plan can not be frustrated, (He is sovereign after all!) then how can I possibly do the wrong thing?

Could I offer an alternative suggestion, which is likely to be completely wrong, and maybe even heretical! Please leave a comment to say why this is wrong if you do have an opinion, because in truth I don’t really believe it, but don’t know why as it seems to make a lot more logical sense: Could it be that God has a plan. One plan which is for the whole of mankind. Wherever we are required in order to fulfil a certain part of that plan, (which may be very regularly and may even include seemingly small details of our lives, such as what friends we have or where we work, and also, could include different things for different people), there God plans for us. In that sense, He cannot be frustrated. Those things will happen as God wants them to. This would mean that God has planned for us, but only to the point where that satisfies his ultimate plan for mankind. The smaller, more mundane parts of our lives are ours to decide what to do with. Me choosing tuna over cheese, would not affect God’s plan for Salvation, and ultimately to glorify Himself, therefore He really doesn’t mind. In this sense, God hasn't planned each detail of my life, rather He has a plan, and I often fit into it and therefore much of my life is indirectly planned out for me. If this is not true, then what is the point in praying for anything? I know it shows our dependence on him, but could we not just tell Him that we know we are and stop praying for the things that we want to happen? If God's plans every tiny detail of our lives, and cannot be frustrated, then why bother desiring anything? We might as well just wait and see what we get.

Also, whilst on the subject of plans, if God is out of time, then how can he plan? Surely by definition a plan is produced in order to achieve a future goal. Why would you plan an outcome you can already see? It doesn’t make sense!

See my confusion?!?!?! And thats just the start!

Its a good job God knows what He's doing isn't it!

I realise that this has many connections to a previous post of mine, (God, an individual relationship), particularly the part that says, "Does God care about the things of "life", that I really care about unless these are the very things that themselves have an impact on His Kingdom." I will retrack, and read the comments that were left for me back then, but I did just want to bring this up again because I think it is really important.

Cell Reflections (2)

God is closer than you think. That’s as may be but what about God being closer than you want? Is it not true that sometimes we may actually want to block God from being close to us?

It seems quite clear that if we are purposely going against God’s will, if we are consciously disobeying, and letting sin reign in our lives, then we would want to keep God at arms length, because we don’t want Him to see it. However, God can see our whole lives anyway. We can’t control that. The point is though, that we can, to an extent, control how much we let ourselves feel God’s closeness. Sometimes it is easier to push God away than it is to change the things in our lives that He will ask us to. It’s almost like saying, “If I don’t let God come close to me, if I refuse to lift my finger to meet his outstretched hand, then I won’t feel so guilty about not doing His will, and I can even convince myself that it’s not that big a deal and God doesn’t care that much about it anyway.

Also, sometimes if God has asked us to do something huge for Him, and we are obedient, it is so easy to push Him away afterwards. Why do we do this? Is it because of resentment or bitterness? Maybe fear of having to do something else that hurts that much. Maybe it could even be a determination to control our own lives; we obeyed and now we want to regain control. It’s almost like telling God that He came too close, and now it’s time for Him to back off for a bit – a need for some breathing space now that He has made us deal with this hurt and pain.

Maybe we sometimes think it is easier to go though the desert of feeling far away from God, than it is to go through the pain of sacrificing our will to follow His, or to acknowledge that pain and hurt after the sacrifice is complete. Therefore, hearing that God is closer than you think is not always the comforting message it ought to be. It is in fact a bulldozer that shatters an otherwise quite comfortable view of God being distant and un-involved in our individual lives.

Having written this post, I am beginning to feel that it is a bit random; a kind of statement stuck in the middle of a huge bundle of questions. I wrote it mainly as an accompanying part to the previous post, as I felt I wanted to make sure that these were more than passing thoughts in one discussion at cell group. I think it is important to acknowledge that it is not always a matter of teaching people that God is closer than they think. It may sometimes require the acknowledgement that, in truth, God is closer than we want.

Cell Reflections

Is God really closer than you think? Is He right next to me as I type this? Is He reaching out to me, stretching out His arm as much as He can to try and reach me? I guess the first instinct is to say yes, of course He is, but do we really believe that? How does that impact our living? As John Ortberg says, what if we really believed that God is closer than we think?

Let me give a bit of context. The Church I go to have just entered a period of time where we will be focussing on ‘God is closer than you think’, the series by John Ortberg. We will be looking at this material in our cell groups and in our meetings on Sundays. I love it when we follow a series like this. It feels like we are on a journey together as a whole church, searching out what it means for God to be close to us. It’s nice to be able to go to Church, expecting to take the next step on the journey.

We had our first cell group of the series on Monday night, and I have to say it kind of blew my mind. We went off on a number of tangents and ended up discussing all kinds of massive topics, such as God’s sovereignty, God’s desire for His own glory, (I will write about this later – massive subject, thanks Jo for the John Piper book, its reshaping my whole understanding of God!), suffering, Gods will and predestination. It was mad! I guess maybe we should have tried to stay on track a bit more, but I have to say that unless we had been able to openly discuss what confuses us like that right at the beginning of this series, we would have been unable to see past that stuff to get the real message of the book. For example, if we hadn’t been able to say, I don’t get how God can love us so much if he allows so much suffering in the world, then for the rest of the series we would be sitting there, with this thought playing on our minds and not really letting ourselves hear that God loves us. Does that make sense?

I guess the main question I have based on this first cell group is how do I know that God is really reaching out to me? How do I know that God is actually that close to me? It all sounds very nice, but nice doesn’t make it true. Let me elaborate:

One of the stories John Ortberg tells is of a time where he was sitting next to a guy on a plane who was looking at some pictures of his son on his screensaver. John Ortberg asks him about the boy and the Father then goes on to talk for ages about his son, telling him lots of stories etc, and showing him loads of pictures. This is of course because he totally just loves his son. His son hadn’t done anything particularly special to make his father want to describe him so tenderly, he hadn’t won some special award or made a life changing discovery. His father loved him, just because he did, not for what he had done. John Ortberg says that God loves us in that way. Just because He does. It is like we are on His screensaver and He is adoringly showing us off because He loves us so much.

My reaction to this was eeuugghh! How cheesy! I honestly am not convinced that God sees it like that. I don’t even like the thought of it, God showing me off on his screensaver. It just doesn’t feel right.

I am not wondering about possible reasons why I might feel this way, I don’t really think of it as a personal thing at all, it is more one of logic and theology. Is this actually true? Does God really think of us in that way? What do you think? Do I have reason to be suspicious of this sort of description of God?

Its not that I don’t believe He loves us, of course I do, I know that He most definitely does. Its more one of how He expresses that love I guess, and how we view it. I just see it as too focussed on us. I am worried that I am going to go through this whole series and not get past the fact that we are so central to the message of the book. It feels like we are being self-indulgent by allowing ourselves to revel in the fact that we are at the centre of God’s attention. I am not convinced that we should be.

Sorry, to be negative, I absolutely agree that this material is totally brilliant to be doing, I don’t for one second have a problem with the material or the decision to use it. It’s absolutely right. However, I need to know whether its ok to allow ourselves to think of God loving us in this way, or whether we should be careful when we are studying it to make sure that it is God at the centre of all of our desires, rather than using it to satisfy a desire for significance through the focus on God’s love for us.

What do people think? Could we be in danger of being self-indulgent in this?

Striving for perfection

Firstly, appologies for the lack of posting recently. I haven't had any massive topics running through my brain for a while. I think it must have been on standby. Anyway, I was chatting with a very good friend of mine late on Saturday evening, and about three post-worthy topics came up, so expect a few more posts in the not too distant future.

Today's topic has been playing on my mind for some time, but has been sitting at the back waiting for an oppotunity to really present itself. Its also the first personal post I have written, so I am being vulnerable! Let me start at the beginning. I am somewhat of a perfectionist in nature. Not that everything I do is perfect, (if only), more that it severely winds me up when it is not. I have recently been discovering how that has a massive impact on my spiritual journey. A while ago in cell group, a statement was read out which reminded me quite a lot of the 24-7 vision. You know the kind of thing, radical people doing radical things, being prepared to die for the cause of Christ, that kind of thing. Its in the freedom for Christ book, sorry, I can't remember what it says. Anyway, when we were asked our opinions of it, I couldn't help but open my mouth and let all my frustrations pour out. (Sorry about that cell group people!). I totally agreed with what it said, I couldn't deny the truth of most of it, but I just felt completely worthless after having read it. I am nowhere even close to that sort of spirituality, and the distance between there and my current position is so massive, it really wears me out even thinking about trying to get there. The annoyance is that in reading it, I totally wanted to be that sort of Christian. I wanted to be that passionate, that secure in my relationship with God, to care nothing about the world and only about Him, it just totally annoyed me that I wasn't already there, and that I was so far away. I hated the thought that God might be disappointed in me for not being that 'good a Christian'.

After my little rant at cell, I kind of forgot about it for a while. Till Saturday! I was reading this book, (Hunger For Reality by George Verwer), and there is this one page in there saying this:

"We have committed ourselves in reckless abandonment to the claims of Christ on our blood-bought lives. We have no rights! Every petty, personal desire must be subordinated to the supreme task of reaching the world for Christ. We are debtors. We must not allow ourselves to be swept into the soul-binding curse of modern-day materialistic thinking and living. Christians have been 'willing' long enough to forsake all - the time has come, (and is passing) when we must forsake all! Christ must have absolute control of our time and money. We must yield posessions, comforts, food and sleep; we must live on the barest essentials, that His cause might be furthered! The propagation of the faith we hold supreme! Christ is worthy of our all! We must be ready to suffer for Him and count it joy, to die for Him and count it gain. In the light of the present spiritual warfare, anything less than absolute dedication must be considered insubordination to our Master and a mockery of His cause!" George Verwer

Woah!

A very wise person, (and someone I trust implicitly) once said to me that it is possible to be striving so hard for perfection, to be trying so hard to be perfectly holy, that we miss the beauty of the love of our God. We can get so caught up in trying to be this amazing Christian and do all this stuff for God that we burn ourselves out, get disappointed and frustrated and end up hating ourselves for not being who we are so desperately trying to be.

To be honest, I have to agree with both of these people. The Christianity described by George Verwer is the Christianity I find in the disciples when I read Acts. Surely we should still be just as passionate, just as dedicated, and just as faithful as they were. After all, we serve the same God, and preach the same Jesus. BUT, we still have to live in the world, we still have to reach the people in our culture, and maybe, (correct me if I'm wrong), being that radical is going to alianate us from our culture rather than helping us to reach people in it.

Take for example the whole thing about yielding posessions, comforts, food and sleep. What is this actually saying we should do? Give them up? It wouldn't be very healthy, and on the other hand, we get told an awful lot that we should take care of our bodies and look after them because they are temples of the Holy Spirit. (See earlier post!)

Where is the balance? Are we Christians being too lukewarm? Should we be more radical? And how do we strive for perfection without frustrating ourselves so much?

The Desert Place

So summer school is over for another year. Its so weird coming back from an event like that, where you have been so consumed by all that constitutes summer school; for me this includes drama obviously, but also (and mainly) trying to really help the students to get the message that we are trying to bring to them, and suddenly you are thrust back into normal life, and its as if the week never happened at all. All that you have left at the end of it is a distant memory of what happened and a full drama script which we always say we should publish but never do.

It’s funny how easy it is to fall into the trap of letting it be just another summer school. Just another big event where you have a spiritual high, and then forget about it as soon as you get back to ‘normality’. Well I am going to try really hard to not let that happen this year. Summer school is a reality. I know it’s not normality, but it is still reality. The issues, questions and lessons learned are real, they exist, and they have to be faced at and beyond summer school. So am I listening? Really listening?

A massive question which must be faced when dealing with the subject of listening for God’s voice is; what do you do when you can’t hear God. I think the first thing to do is establish some possible reasons why this may be the case:

1) It could be that the individual concerned is not really listening; not really spending time with God, genuinely asking Him to speak or making the effort to read the Bible and spend time in silence with Him, purposefully listening to His voice.

2) It could be that the individual is genuinely trying to listen to God, but there are distractions that stop them from hearing. Maybe their mind wanders in the middle of praying, or they start praying but spend their whole time praying for other people or asking God for things, that they never actually get round to listening. Maybe they start to but then they think of another person or situation to bring before God. Maybe they just tend to fall asleep.

3) It could be that the distractions have turned into barriers. They truly do take time out for God. They try to spend time with God, they read the Bible regularly and spend time quietly thinking about what it could mean both in the context of the Bile and in their own lives. They could stay focused on God throughout the whole of the quiet time, utilizing tools and methods for eliminating distractions, and yet they could remain un-tuned to the voice of God because they have things going on in their lives which they don’t want to change, don’t want to give up to God and don’t want to lose control of, whether those things are wrong in themselves or not.

4) It could be that God is purposefully not talking to them for a while. I read about this in a book once (I really can’t remember which one but will most definitely try to find out). It is very rare to hear of people who have been, “in the desert place”, and have not come out the other side much stronger in their faith, and much more dependent on God rather than themselves. I am honestly not sure why God might stop talking to them for a while. I need to re-read that book I think, any comments on this would be appreciated. At the end of the day, God knows what He is doing, and if He really has stopped talking there will be a reason for it that makes sense.

As I was writing the four categories above I was thinking that one of the problems might be knowing which of the categories your desert place was related to, (if any). However, on reflection I think it is pretty clear. If you are not spending time with God, it could be to do with category 1. Sort that out and then see where that takes you. If you get easily distracted in your prayer times, then you are in category 2. Try using methods and tools for keeping focused – writing down your prayers, meditating on scripture, memorizing Bible verses etc. Then see where that takes you. For the people in category 3 it can be very difficult to admit that you are in this place. Generally if you don’t want to give something up to God to take control of, then it is easier to pretend you don’t realize it and to ignore it and to say therefore that you must be in category 4. However, I believe that if you pray enough for God to speak, and there is something in your life that needs to be given to God then God will reveal it to you. You usually know deep down that you are in category 3. You just need to admit it and deal with it, praying that the desire to be close to God and really in tune with Him becomes stronger than the desire to hold onto whatever it is. This can be a dangerous place to be in because if you stop hearing God’s voice, it is easy to become disillusioned and therefore further away from God, meaning that the desire to give something up to Him is lessened as well, and therefore making the situation worse. It is so important so be totally in love with God, totally consumed by Him, really eager to maintain a close, deep friendship with Him. I guess we have to rely on the Spirit to give us those desires,

Category 4 is much more difficult. If God has stopped talking, how can we help the people in that place to not start doubting the existence of God. I can’t really blame people for doubting when God stops talking. You can go through the whole process of thinking, any time that I experienced God in the past I could have been making it up. It could have been psychological, me wanting to hear God so much and so fabricating that experience in my head. Where I am now is the reality, no voice, no God. (For starters, if you fabricated those experiences in the past out of a deep desire to hear God’s voice, why would that not be happening this time?) Of course, it is a matter of faith. Saying in spite of the doubts, I choose to believe. Making it a choice based on knowledge rather than on feelings. “Blessed be your name, when I’m found in the desert place, though I walk through the wilderness, Blessed be your name.” This is a very difficult song to sing in the face of this kind of doubt, and yet it is based on real truth.

Of course, it may not be as clear cut as this all suggests. For some the desert place may consist of a number of factors spanning all 4 categories, and most likely there are other categories I have missed out, but these were specifically the things that I felt had been identified during the week at summer school.

Sorry that this entry has been much more statements rather than questions. (That is actually unusual for me!) I just really wanted to scratch down all my thoughts about this. As you can probably see, I have thought about this a lot and am really trying to figure this all out mentally and intellectually. However, this does not mean that it will be sorted. Knowing what to do is not enough. It requires action, and that is the bit we have to be prepared to do if we genuinely want to hear from God. How can we make ourselves want to do this? For those of us in category 3, how can we make the desire for God’s voice stronger than the desire to hold on to our baggage?

Answers on a postcard please!!!

Grippage

Ok, a quick break from all the heavy stuff. I just felt that I had to quash any rumours Matt White may be spreading about me not completing grippage. I DID complete grippage. It may have been a small table, but it was a success for Kirsty none-the-less. Just so that everyone is aware of the truth.

Individual Design

This topic springs from the last, in that it once again deals with God’s relationship with us as individuals. I have a very specific question on my mind right now: Did God design each of us individually? Did He think about each one of us, think about what features we would have, how tall we would be, how crooked our smile would be, etc? Did He design us with delicacy and precision, not just as a race but as an individual? Some Bible passages certainly give us that impression:

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Psalm 139: 13-14

Your hands shaped me and made me... Did you not clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews? You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit. Job 10:8-12

However, having spent time doing many internet searches on this topic, I have found relatively little else to support this view. I can’t find any other scripture that suggests this sort of intricate, individual design. Even these two passages do not explicitly state that God designed each of us (bodily) in detail. Take for example Psalm 139: What is it actually saying?

This is basically, (I think), poetic language to describe the idea that God created us and knows us intimately and personally. It is mainly discussing the fact that God knows us, knows everything about us. The psalm does not say, “You decided what colour my eyes would be, whether I would have straight or curly hair”. It is not meant to be a theologically accurate statement that defines the exact nature of how each of us was created, but a poetic description of the presence of God in our individual lives.

“The basic thrust of the psalm is that God knows all about the psalmist, even before he was born, so it will do no good to try to hide "any wicked way" from God. There is even the poetic imagery of God carefully crafting him in the womb, with the implication that if God made him then God would know everything there is to know about him. With that confession that God knows all about him, the psalmist places himself in submission to God, and uses that confession as the basis of the prayer for God's guidance in the "way" of life.” Dennis Bratcher - Psalm 139:16 and Predestination: Text Criticism and Interpretation.

This is not a discussion about whether God created human life – I believe He did, but I think that He designed human life so that genetics could determine that sort of thing. Therefore, if there is something about or bodies that we don’t like, or tend to moan about, we aren’t saying that we don’t like God’s workmanship. Its not humanity in general that we are moaning about, but about the specifics of that which were not necessarily designed by God, but happened through the design process which God set out. Obviously, fixation on the outward appearance is still contrary to the instructions of scripture – (“Man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart” 1 Samuel 16:7b), but it is surely not for the reason that we are criticising God’s creation, rather that our focus is wrong.