Providence on the Side of the Road
“Cynthia’s down! Cynthia’s Down!”
The cry came from my tandem partner, Barb, and it meant exactly what it sounded like. Our fellow cyclist, Cynthia, had crashed while going 20+ mph on a stretch of I-76. She lay on the side of the road with her cracked helmet, holding a throbbing wrist, complaining about a pain in her thigh that would later be identified as a fractured pelvis.
Later, after Cynthia had been carted away the ambulance and as we continued to ride somberly toward our final destination, another cyclist commented that it was amazing to see how God was, once again, at work on their tour. “It wasn’t just coincidence,” he said. “It was providence. It was a ‘God thing.’”
I’ll admit, I’ve never really liked the phrase, “God thing.” And any time people start talking about the providence of God in a messy situation, I start to get nervous. After all, if they’re going to credit God for what went right in a bad situation, are they going to give him credit for what went wrong, too? Isn’t there something wrong with that picture?
I don’t have the answers to all those questions. But as I continued to reflect on what happened–and what didn’t happen–with Cynthia’s accident, I had to admit that my riding partner was right. Some how, some way, God was at work.
First of all, there was Sarah. At the moment Cynthia went down, she was being passed by a car with two folks who were heading back to Massachusetts after a few weeks of vacationing out west. They immediately pulled over and one of them one of them (Sarah) just “happened” to be an EMT. Not bad timing, if I don’t say so myself!
And then there was what could have happened–but didn’t. Cynthia could have fallen into traffic–but she didn’t. And she could have taken out the two cyclists who were riding behind her–but she didn’t. Things could have been so much worse than a fractured pelvis and a prematurely ended bike tour. But they weren’t.
Perhaps–in a world that is broken and fractured by sin and its consequences, in a world that is far from imperfect–that’s how God’s providence works. No, he doesn’t remove all obstacles (or crash inducing litter!) from our paths. He doesn’t make us invincible. But God–in his providence*–does make it so that things aren’t as bad as they could be. And though God doesn’t give us a Teflon coating that causes all the garbage of life to slide right off , He does–in his providence–give us the grace to make it through.
*In our tradition, this has often been attributed to the function of “Common Grace” and what John Calvin (I believe) referred to as “the universal work of the Holy Spirit.
Stomp for Jesus?
I recently went to a production of “Stomp” with some friends. If you’re not familiar, it’s a dance/drumming group that uses every day things–brooms, newspapers, pipes, gas cans, kitchen sinks, basketballs–to make music. Not the kind of music you’d hear in a cathedral or concert hall–but music nonetheless. Personally, I think they do a mighty fine job of it (see the video below if you’d like a taste).
The show was plenty engaging in it’s own right. But even as I watched with simple delight, I couldn’t help but think about a question that I often hear: What does it mean to be “Reformed”?
The standard answer is that being “Reformed” has to do with (a) our historical roots in the Reformation of the 16th Century and (b) our conviction that the sovereign God has placed his claim on “every square inch” of our lives and we are to bring him glory in all that we do.
I think that’s an accurate answer–but it’s not a very inspiring or creative one. So as I sat and watched those musicians swoosh their brooms in perfect rhythm and clang on their sinks in strange harmony, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a better answer playing out right in front of me. After all, we Reformed folks pride ourselves in using the term “worship” in a very broad way. We want to expand the activity beyond the sanctuary on Sunday morning–we want it to overflow into all of life, wherever we find ourselves, no matter what we’re doing. And it seems to me that that’s exactly what was happening in that show. Of course, those who were making that music may not have intended it that way–but I suspect that God took some delight–in their creativity and joy, their harmonies and their rhythms, in their ability to make music with whatever the could find–anyway.
So, how is it that we can make God glorifying “music” while standing over our own kitchen sinks, clicking at our keyboards, ruffling through our papers? How can we use everything in life–even our garbage–to bring Him praise and glory?
Growing into Providence
An elderly gentleman told me a story today. It must’ve happened more than eighty-five years ago, when he was a little boy. He didn’t elaborate on the details, though it was clearly etched in his mind.
It seems that a a group of children from the neighborhood went swimming at a local pond one day. One of them didn’t come home.
At the funeral, the preacher said: “This was not an accident. This was a part of God’s plan. This was God’s will.”
My old friend has never forgotten it.
I’m not sure if he believed his preacher or not. But it seems that he did. It seems that he found the words to be full of hope, full of comfort.
I’m not sure that I do.
I worry that–with all our Calvinistic talk about Divine Providence and Sovereignty and Control–we run the risk of making God the author of evil. For if God pulls the puppet strings that pull a young boy under water, what can you call it but evil? I wonder, wouldn’t we be better off if we gave the credit for these things to somebody/something else?
On the other hand–I understand the comfort in knowing/believing that things don’t simply happen at random; that there is a higher purpose; that the Good God is in control and that tragedy strikes because he has some hidden good in mind that we cannot understand.
I suspect that there is some messy middle ground between these two positions (micromanaging of the universe on the one hand and liaise faire style of governance on the other) where the truth about God’s role in all this lies. There must be some way to nuance our theological language that respects both the power of our good God as well as the reality and power of evil.
I’ll let you know when I find it.
In the meantime, I find that when trying to make sense of God’s role in the brokenness of this world and in our lives, most folks toss nuance out the window and pick one side or the other. As for me–the longer I’m in ministry, the more I’m learning to respect the folks who put their faith in a God who is in complete control. It takes a lot of faith (and chutzpa) to sit by the hospital bed of a loved one, to stand over the casket of a friend, to take a pink slip from a boss, to watch the evening news and to still say: It was God’s will. I do not understand it all. But I know God is good. God is in control. And that is enough for me.
But like I said, I’m not quite there yet. It seems to me that in so many matters of faith, I’m like a child playing dress up–I’ve got Dad’s suit, tie, and shoes on, but they’re all too big. I’ve got some growing to do before I can fit into them quite right. And while I’d like to think that I’ve grown up a bit in the past few years–while the “pants of providence” don’t pool around my ankles quite like they used to–I’ve still got some growing to do before I say with the the same simple conviction of that Dominie of years gone by: “This was not an accident. This was a part of God’s plan. This was God’s will.”
Heaven
I’ve been thinking about heaven a lot the past few months. I’ve been thinking about what it is we want from heaven, what we hope it will be like, what exactly will make it so wonderful for us.
The Bible (and our culture) suggests many different answers to this question: we look forward to heaven because there will be no more suffering, “no more mourning, crying, or pain,” as Revelation 21:4 so beautifully puts it. And of course, many of us look forward to being reunited with our loved ones (books like 90 Minutes in Heaven seem especially keen on this idea, from what I’m told). Or perhaps we simply look forward to heaven because we trust that will experience life as it was intended to be: a restored earth free of crime and pollution and all the brokenness, perhaps(depending on who we are and where we’re getting our information) an eternal golf game* or the everlasting weekend in the mountains.
Those things may all be well and good. But I wonder, are they enough? Or ought we to be hoping for something more? Or as John Piper puts the question:
The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?”
The “right” answer to that question, of course, (at least from a Christian perspective)ought to be “no.” But my fear is that, too often, we talk about heaven (and about Christianity in general) in a way that suggests otherwise. Think, for example, of the way we may “pitch” Christianity evangelistically: we tell others that Jesus will relieve them of their guilt, give them the chance to see dear old aunt Sally again, or will get them some othe perk. Sure, these things may be true–but they miss the deeper point. The deeper point, as Piper puts it in the title of his book, is that GOD is the Gospel. The point is that true happiness comes from fellowship with HIM–which is exactly what he gives us in Christ and promises us for eternity!**
So why do I make such a big deal out of this? Well, for one thing, it’s a simple matter of right thinking. Suggesting that heaven is more about forgiveness or lack of pain or some other perk than it is about life with God confuses the ends with the means.*** But more to the point–it comes back to T.S. Elliot’s famous line: “In my end is my begninning.” If our eternal goal is merely to be reunited with our loved ones, to live a pain free life, to ski for eternity–then that’s how I’ll live now. Those will be the things that we live for now. (And if that’s how we live, I suspect we might be too earthly minded to be of much heavenly good.) But if my eternal goal is to dwell with God (and the rest is just details), than will have termendous implications for what–or WHO–I seeek and serve now!
*For some, this might only happen in that other, warmer , place!
**Since I’ve started thinking about this, I’ve realized that a much more central concern of Rev 21 (more central than the absence of sickness, crying or pain etc mentioned in verse 4) comes in verse 3: Now the dwelling of God is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God… It’s more about the relationship than the “perks.”
***I find Lewis helpful on this point. In A Grief Observed, he writes: Am I just sidling back to God because I know that if there’s any road to H. [Lewis' deceased wife], it runs through him? But then of course I know perfectly well that He can’t be used as a road. If you’re approaching Him not as the goal but as a road, not as the end but as a means, you’re not really approaching Him at all. That’s what was really wrong with all those popular pictures of happy reunions ‘on the further shore’; not the simple-minded and very earthly images, but the fact that they make an End of what we can get only as a by-product of the true End.
