ARE THERE ACCIDENTS IN A CHRISTIAN’S LIFE?

Life may have but few certainties, but those few make a great difference in how one views human existence. It is a comfort to me to realize that while we are surprised at the turns history takes, He who rules the universe is never surprised. Whether it is the fall of a sparrow or the rise of an empire, God knows all about it, beforehand. God is neither surprised nor shocked when an airliner crashes or when nations go to war.

He not only knows but He is also in control. However dangerous life may seem to be, the Creator still holds the reins. He is like the mother who wills that her child learn to walk. She knows he will take tumbles and hurt himself, which she allows for tile sake of his development. But she takes precautions, such as removing sharp objects from the room, lest he be hurt too badly. The mother remains in control even if her child comes up with a bruised knee. She knows the child will be hurt, to some degree, in learning to walk, but she does not will that he be hurt. She allows it in that it is a necessary part of what she wants for her child, development.

And so God has placed us in a world of his design, even if he has not willed everything that happens. He knows we will take tumbles and get hurt, for that is how we grow in this world, but he is always in control in that he does not allow the world to become too much for us. He removes the deadliest obstacles from mankind’s reach, thus allowing the drama of life to go on. Just as the mother knows her child will get hurt in learning to walk without willing it, so God knows all about the tragedies and heartaches that come our way without ordaining them.

If this is confusing it may be that we are deceived by the idea of time, which must be unreal. If God is the ultimate reality then there is no such thing as time. If to God a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years as a day, as the Scriptures insist, then he stands outside of time —and space. In terms of eternity time is meaningless, as is space. This is why we can all be together in the presence of God in heaven with no space problem. When the medieval divines talked about how many angels could stand on the point of a needle, it was not complete nonsense, for they were hinting at the non-temporal, non-spatial character of reality. Theoretically all the countless angels could stand on the point of a needle, for there is no such thing as space beyond our finite universe or universes.

Since we are tied to a temporal-spatial environment this is of course beyond our comprehension, just as God himself is. But we have occasional experiences that hint of timelessness, such as when we say to a new friend “It seems I’ve known you forever.” Or the difference in “time” between a boring hour waiting at the airport and an hour watching an exciting movie. Who will say that such “time” is the same even though both embrace sixty minutes? These are hints that time is deceptive and unreal. We of course have our seconds, minutes, hours, weeks, etc., but these are only artificial measurements that make the logistics of life possible. Time may be seen as experience, which is the only reality. This is why time is meaningless to the insane. They have no conscious experiences.

This may help us to realize that it may not be important how long one lives in this world. It is the quality of life that counts, not the years, the experiences one has, not his longevity. One glorious “hour” (a scintillating spiritual experience) may mean more than a lifetime of drabness.

This may also suggest that death and tragedy are of little moment to God, who exists outside of time and space, though he always feels for us in our loss and sorrow. While an airline crash is devastating to us, it may be no more than earthy to God, for all those who “die” are not really dead at all.

And once the “dead” step outside time and space they would almost certainly elect to remain there rather than return to earth, though surely some, who made a mess of their lives and confront God in judgment, would want another chance. A newspaper headline would surprise most of the world, Crash Victims Refuse to Return to Earth, but not those of us who believe in a God who is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. Surely no one in eternity would choose to reenter the stuffy confines of space and time, except perhaps for another chance at life in this world.

Standing outside of time and space, God of course knows everything that happens before it happens. Except that there is no before with God. It is like a passing freight train, which seems endless to us as the cars pass before us one by one. Some cars are past, some present, some future. God sees all the train in one sweep. To God there is no past, present, or future. And here we have the most crucial certainty of all: God already knows what our end will be and he will make it so. Still we are free to make our choices. But since he stands outside time he knows what our choices will be.

What then are we to say about accidents? Does life have its chances?

The answer has to be yes. That God knows and that he is never surprised does not rule out chance. Life is full of chance and accidents. We live on the threshold of “the unexpected,” and we can take heart that there are unexpected joys as well as unexpected sorrows. God knows if we are to have an accident the next time we go swimming (without willing it), but we don’t. When tragedy strikes we can truthfully say that it was an accident in that it was willed by neither man nor God. And the direction one’s life takes is largely a matter of the circumstance of chance. This is evident when you compare where and when you were born against the aborigines of Australia.

The schools you attended (or no education at all), the person you married (or did not marry), and your life’s work have been largely determined by chance. Had you been born at a different time or lived in a different place you would have married someone else. You are at the wrong place at the wrong time and are injured in a terrorist attack. Chance. There is an accident on the highway or cancer strikes. Chance. No one willed it. It is the stuff of the world. Jesus spoke of it when he said “In the world you will have troubles, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.” He is telling us of the kind of world we live in, one full of troubles.

When an airliner crashes and kills hundreds, it is surely not the case that God spared the four or five that survived. It was chance. To God it may not be all that important that someone survives, though every believer knows that God can certainly spare whom he will, and perhaps he does sometimes intervene and spares one that would otherwise be killed.

No one can draw any limits on the God of heaven. He will do what he will do. And it may be that in any given case he may have caused (willed) two people to meet and marry, or he may have willed for you to enter a given profession or to live in a given city.

We can only say that in the light of the sources available to us —the Scriptures, nature, common sense, moral reason-that we do not have tq conclude that God wills (decrees, causes) everything that happens. He does however have a will for us in everything that happens. A heart attack! God did not cause it or will it. It is a part of our chancy, unpredictable world. But his circumstantial will takes over, which is that I respond to the crisis in simple trusting faith. Die or not, he is with me and he will bless me and give me the victory. He may use it to deepen and strengthen my faith and thus better prepare me for graduation to a higher level of service that transcends time and space.

This is the point of Christian faith. We are to be of “good cheer” in a troubled, chancy world. God does not promise us that he will deliver us from life’s tragedies, but that he will be with us. Like Jesus who strengthens us, we too can overcome the world.

This cannot mean that the world cannot hurt us, but that it cannot gain the victory. We remain in control and in the end we will win because we have surrendered our will to Him who rules the universe. So there is hardly any question but what we live in an accident-prone, chancy world, full of uncertainties. The issue is whether we will respond with childlike faith to him we call Father or whether we allow the world to sell us its false values. —the Editor

 

Should We Pray About the Weather?

As this issue goes to press hurricane Gloria threatens the east coast. Last night Pat Robertson prayed before millions on TV that God would redirect the storm out to sea. Is it not more appropriate to pray that we might respond with faith and courage to whatever life may bring? Weather is determined by natural forces, and it may be presumptuous to ask God to remove the fault that causes an earthquake or to quiet the fiery elements that erupt into a volcano. Why not just ask God to change the way he made nature? Would Pat ask God to spare Virginia Beach of a hurricane while Mexico City is ravished by an earthquake? Did Jesus pray about the weather or did he bear the brunt of the Judean sun and all the other elements? When he calmed the raging sea he was teaching that he is with us in the storms of life rather than that he will remove the storms. James says that Elijah’s prayers caused a famine to begin and end, but it is not that way in the OT story. James interpreted like a good rabbi! Amidst a vicious storm Paul prayed for people but not about the weather. Had Pat been more like Paul he would not have to explain now that Gloria did not turn around. Prayer is for perseverance and not for escape. It is not a question of what God can do but what he does. One can of course pray about whatever is on his heart, but I doubt that it does any good to pray about the weather. —the Editor