I'd like to start by noting that both of these practices stem from the same basic insight, which is a good one: quite simply, we're all better off if we do things God's way. Cary isn't arguing that we're free to live however we please instead of living to please God. Rather, he criticizes the practices of giving God control and finding God's will because they 1) involve a misunderstanding of our relationship to God, and 2) lead to something other than obedient lives that please God.
In the case of letting God take control, the basic misrepresentation of our situation in relation to God is that this practice makes it sound like we can wrest control from God in the first place. Think about it: if Satan and all the fallen angels cannot defeat God, isn't it a little silly to think that you can ruin his plans? To quote Cary,
"It's often put this way: God can't work in your life unless you let him. This is an astonishing piece of fantasy. Where in the Bible or anywhere else in God's creation did people get the idea that God was so helpless? If God can't do anything unless we let him, then God is not really God, and indeed he is less real than any person we know. After all, you don't have to "let" real people work in your life. They have an effect on you whether you like it or not, precisely because they're real. Of course, working with them (cooperating or obeying) is different from working against them (fighting or rebelling). But they have an effect on your life one way or another, because real people do stuff that affects you whether you let them or not."The practice of finding God's will also promulgates a misunderstanding of our position in relation to God. Theologians distinguish between God's revealed will, which we have in Scripture, and God's providential will, which is God's unique plan for the whole future of the world. In Scripture, God has given us everything we need to know about how we should live. We are to love him with our whole beings and love our neighbors as ourselves; we are to live justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with him. God has also given us his Spirit, who enables our understanding of Scripture and reminds us of what we have learned there.
What more of God's will could we hope to discover than what he has already, in his infinite wisdom, chosen to lay out for us in his Word? For my college students, the two biggest questions tend to be who they should marry and what major/career to pursue. Marriage in particular weighs on their minds, because unlike career choices, the assumption is that marriage will be lifelong—you don't get a do-over. Cary weighs in:
"It's a huge question for young people to face, and they need some help from those of us who've already faced it. We shouldn't misdirect them by getting them asking the wrong questions. The worst question of all is: 'Is this the one?' The assumption behind this question is that God has a particular person in store for you to marry: that's his will for your life, and you need to find out who's the one he has in mind. This way of thinking makes your most fundamental investment—the person in which you invest your whole self for the rest of your life—a guessing game about what's in the mind of God."Perhaps God does have a particular person in store for you, but you won't find the details in Scripture. In fact, there's pretty much only way for you to discover God's providential will for the future (including your own): live through it. Cary goes so far as to say there is no such person as "the one," rather, "there are many good people out there with whom you can make a good marriage, and a good marriage with a good person is good enough. Indeed, it is one of the greatest blessings on God's green earth."
So how do we go about making our decisions if we want to please God with our lives? Cary argues that instead of trying to guess what's on God's mind, or "let go and let God," we should accept the responsibility God has given us as stewards and then seek wisdom so that we may obey him faithfully and make wise choices of our own.
To do otherwise leads us away from a life that pleases God. We are not meant to be passive creatures, but rather to be renewed by the Spirit so that we can do good work for God. Trying to give God control puts you in the bizarre situation of not doing anything (since God does it all), but having to somehow tap into God's strength so you can do it through him, and then you wind up doing it by making God do it...? Similarly, trying to find God's will leaves you chasing a chimerical "right choice," when instead you could be putting your effort into discovering which of your choices are good and pleasing to God according to what he has clearly commanded in Scripture.
In summary, I think Cary has hit this one right on the mark. He has a lot more to say in these two chapters, about Christian morality having fallen by the wayside, the mind-games people wind up playing when they take these practices seriously, God's wisdom and grace, and what it means to not lean on your own understanding. And I think he's right about those issues as well. But it's rather preposterous of us to think that we give God control, rather than the other way around, and to search for what God has not chosen to reveal while ignoring what he has.
Good thoughts here.
ReplyDeleteI particularly liked "But they have an effect on your life one way or another, because real people do stuff that affects you whether you let them or not." So very, very true. And too many of us really do sort of act like God's not actually, you know, really real. Santa in the sky . . . I don't want to have a relationship with that construct.
My adviser in college said something very like what Cary said. She would say that she loved her husband dearly, but that she didn't believe he was The One. ". . . there are many good people out there with whom you can make a good marriage, and a good marriage with a good person is good enough." I really wish I could convince some of my single but searching for The One with all their attention friends that they're not looking where they should be . . . :)
The other downside of a fixation on The One is that it's really not fair to your spouse. Thinking carefully about whether you should be dating a particular person is incredibly important; once you're married, however, and you face the inevitable challenging moments, you need to be focused on building and growing the relationship and not wasting any resources on worrying over whether you missed The One.
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