It's Part of God's Plan — Really?

[OBW]

Since this is only tangentially related to the LRC, it definitely falls under the "doesn't seem to fit anywhere else" category. SO here goes . . . .

A popular phrase heard in much of Christianity — well at least evangelical/fundamental Christianity — is that everything is a part of the plan for your life. Now there is some misdirection in the notion at times because on one hand it is often given at a phrase to entice you to get involved with some ministry (therefore if you don't you are missing God's plan for your life). But the other use is more of an uber-Calvinist kind of statement. It indicates that everything is pre-ordained and that it is for your good that it happens as it does.

And it is one of the most callous things said to people at times. Like to the mother who is grieving the loss of her daughter who was raped and murdered. Or the man who just learned that he has inoperable cancer and only 6 weeks to live. "So that is the plan for my life?" Or "this is God's plan for my daughter?"

I honestly think that there is an error in understanding of what God knows will happen (if we understand his omniscience outside of time correctly) as being that God has ordained that it is what will be. Similarly, that God works good in all things is not the same thing as saying all things are good or that God set them in motion to happen, but rather that he has taken what happens and used it.

Otherwise, there is no such thing a free will and Adam and Eve could not help but fail in the garden because it was ordained. That does not mean that God does not actually step in and do things that would not otherwise naturally happen. But I believe that do declare that the way your life will play out was planned is not supported by scripture. That God knows it will happen a certain way is different from Him directing that it does happen that way. Yet he has the authority and power to direct where he chooses.

And if he is simply choosing and orchestrating that everything plays out the way it is, then free will is an errant teaching. And preaching the gospel is just something we do because it was ordained that we would or would not do it. And entreating people to go preach the gospel, or come down the aisle and be saved is just a play in which we are playing a pre-written part. We have no will in it. The fact that we think we have a will is just what was given to us to do as was ordained.

Now, before you suggest that I am trying to chuck it all and don't believe, be assured that I believe. I believe in a God that is capable of doing all of that. But that was confident that giving man free will — and in the face of an onslaught of temptations to do wrong — would not result in every man simply turning away. That some would come to realize their true condition and seek the maker. That many would chose righteousness over unrighteousness (and not just because it is a neat thing to do).

But when you get hit by a car running a red light and your car is totaled, don't have some knee-jerk reaction that says "I wonder why God planned that for me." Most of us don't think it that way, but when we start layering on "God's plan for my life" as you recuperate from the broken bones, are we talking about a different God than the one who made the universe and sent his Son to die for our sins?

Talk amongst yourselves. I'm not sure I have it figured out. I still like "God's plan for my life" a lot of the time.

At least until it includes heartache or pain.

And where is that tangential pink to the LRC? How often do we insist that it was good, and God's plan that we were part of a cult like the LRC? Not saying that nothing good happened to us there. But is being damaged by a cult ever something positive that God planned?

I don't think so.