God is not in Control

Essays

God is not in Control
This aint your average ant farm
July 2007

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A real god doesn't care about control. A real god already has control of everything that needs controlling."
Orson Scott Card

I wind up on the receiving end of flames from time to time for my aversion toward carnival rides. My acumen concerning them is simply this: if you're so bored that you're willing to risk uncertain death or dismemberment for the sake of entertainment, you either fit the profile for a sociopath, or maybe just need to get a dog.

Ah, but "God is in control" they say. I think for a minute, is He really? We all know God certainly has the ability to be in control, but He doesn't seem to take that liberty all the time. If God's will were always done, then we'd have no reason to pray for it to be done, which we do daily as part of "on Earth as it is in Heaven"; it'd just be done all the time and we'd have nothing to pray about or hope for. If God's will were always done on Earth, everyone would be living a lot more spiritually - after all, the Bible does say, "It's not my will that any should perish, but that all should have eternal life". It's very evident by looking at society that God's will most certainly isn't always done - if God micro-managed Earth, it wouldn't suck nearly as much. It seems more the likely that God is not in control - at least, He doesn't seem to want to be in control of every little detail that happens on this planet. If He were, free will would disappear, and the world would be more like a giant ant farm. So what is God's role? God's in control of the things that matter.

Granted, we can invoke God to act on our behalf through prayer. It seems, though, that those whose lives seem to be a chain of bad events are more likely the type to, rather than pray, throw their arms up and confess that "God is in control" of everything. When God is not petitioned through prayer, however, it's very obvious that God lets much of the world run itself. Rather than try and rationalize the idea of things like terrorist attacks being God's will, it makes much more sense to understand that we live in a fallen world, and the sins of one affect the many - even good people. The excuse is often made that bad things happen to us when we choose not to walk in God's will. The catch is this: my choosing not to walk in God's will at some point negate someone else's ability to make that same decision. You could, for example, choose to walk obediently in God's will daily and so you pray every morning with the wind in your hair on a roller coaster because it clears your mind - but if I decide to ignore the brakes on that roller coaster you're about to get on, that pretty much negates your own plan to let God be in control of your life, unless of course you get an instant message telling you not to get on that coaster. Again, the only way you're going to change the events of the world running itself is if you've been praying and invoking God on your behalf. Doing something stupid and simply trusting that God will protect you is naive in the same way that praying before jumping off a building is naive. Sure, it'd be easy to accept the idea that "it was your time", and that God really wanted you to die in say - that roller coaster accident - but do we really want to believe that God uses carnival rides to stage assassinations of God-fearing Christians? Doesn't the Bible include "Life" and "Life more Abundant" as part of Christ's purpose? Where does a premature death come into the picture?

And this is the piece missing from most discussions about God. Rather than have our body severed by a ride run amok, God's will is more the likely for us to use the brains he gave us. If God were in control of everything, then there's no room for wisdom, and we know that we're supposed to have that. God, in His divine plan, somehow had to account for free will to exist and propagate on Earth, and in order to accomplish such a feat, had to disavow himself of some control in order to truly create this free will. In other words, had God not made a conscious decision to not tinker with the planet all the time, and instead put into play a set of spiritual principles, the random events of this world would merely be a script we'd be doomed to act out, exactly as it were created. And if this were the case, there would be no need for wisdom - either natural or supernatural - because everything would play out and our dumb decisions would affect only ourselves. Philosophically speaking, God had to blindfold himself to push us onto the slide - otherwise, we're just a series of predetermined events playing themselves out, and there's no wisdom, no accountability, and no free will- only programming. We know that's not the case, of course, and when God took the blindfold off, He decided to help kick us in the right direction on occasion. What He didn't do was bubble wrap the planet (he left that up to Massachusetts).

The idea of realizing God isn't occupied with every pair of socks in the bedroom drawer somehow always gets twisted to suggest that God's not watching out for us. Quite the contrary, He certainly has got our back, if we're living right, and asking for Him to intervene in our lives. While God doesn't usually get caught up in making sure our tires are inflated to the proper PSI, we can certainly trust that if we ask Him to protect us, and to watch over us, that He'll be faithful in doing so. It's only when we become too lazy to check the tires for ourselves that we depend on God to be our butler instead of our savior.

This is where those other gifts from God come into play - like the gift of a sound mind, allowing us to think and be practical. I lock my doors at night because it's practical for keeping otherwise honest people from becoming criminals. For the dishonest people, I have a 12-gauge as a back up should the door lock fail to get its point across. We have a mind that tells us it's a good idea to look both ways before crossing the street. Even the ones who dance with venomous snakes do this - it would certainly be too ironic for one of them to die from a hit-and-run. God would be disappointed if He didn't get to ask them, "why in the world were you playing with snakes to begin with - don't you know they're dangerous?"

Obviously God does protect us, and is looking out for us, and that's why sometimes He wants us to pray, and other times to simply use our brain. It's not a matter of our practical mind trumping faith - it's a matter of faith without works being dead. Our daily walk with God involves Him sending boats. The smart ones jump in the boat, and the dumb ones end up asking God why He didn't save them from drowning.

Christians are so focused on the supernatural, that we seem to purposely ignore the natural. We forget that everything tangible is also from God - that God Himself invented the physics and the mathematics we consider to be mundane school subjects, or that this superior mind we've got exists because God ordained it to exist. Just take a look at the lost part of society today, and you can quickly see just what a gift from God rational thought can be.

If I were to summarize my philosophy on letting God direct one's life, I suppose it would go something like this: Seek the kingdom of God. If you get a word directly from God, by all means listen to it. Until that happens, you have a brain - God gave it to you - use that brain to process decisions and pray God protects you from the dumb ones. If you can't function without a prophetic word to take mustard on your hot dog, you're not any more spiritual than the rest, you've merely lost your individuality, which is the opposite of what the true church looks like.

If I had to guess as to why Christians fail to grasp this concept, I'd surmise it's probably got someething to do with the fear most people have of taking responsibility for their lives. It's much easier to simply attribute everything in our life to God's tinkering than the idea that perhaps some of the trials we live through were unnecessarily brought on ourselves by bad decisions. I am of the breed that recognizes the present life as not only a test, but a gift - there's a life, albeit short, to enjoy while on this planet, and it seems like it'd be a throw-away to spend it wondering if God wants me to step outside and do anything with it.

I find that at least some people who rely on God being in control are actually confused about their own purpose on Earth, and since they don't know what that is, they go into the mode of doing nothing until they get tasked by God. Quite the contrary, our purpose has already been spelled out - we're here to love others, to exercise good will, and to walk out our life with God - not as a puppet on strings, but as sentient creatures who make the conscious decision to use the gift of life we have to live, and not merely become zombies waiting for an instruction set. Until we come to identify with our specific calling in Christ, we should be keeping busy with the instructions we have.

God in Control is a place everyone wants to be - and it certainly sounds like the safest, most ideal place to live life... but our individuality suffers when we go to the extreme and give up our own free will for the expectation that God wants to rule over every fine grain detail in our life. He created us to think - but many Christians seem to believe you have to commit intellectual suicide to remain a Christian. Perhaps the basis for their original faith might warrant some self-inspection? God is in control of the things that matter, and He's left the finer details in your life a box for us to open up and discover on our own.

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