An Involved God

Something I've changed my mind a few times about has been how involved God is in our daily lives. For as long as I've been a Christian, I've believed that God is ultimately in control. But I've questioned just how actively involved in things God is. I'm not kidding when I say I've been to just about every extreme.

For a while I believed something which was kind of Calvinist in nature. I held that everything that happened in my life was ordained by God. So even something simple like picking a pair of socks for the day or stubbing my toe was something that God saw beforehand and approved of. God selected who I would run across in life, what job I'd work at, what TV shows I'd watch that day, etc. In this sense, God was heavily involved. It was also more personal since God himself had approved an eternity beforehand what would happen on a daily basis.

Then my thoughts switched and I held that God was pretty hands-off about things. He decided the times of our birth and death. He also gave us natural talents in certain things. For me that would involve programming and writing. Throughout our lives, God would intervene to make a few things happen, but it wouldn't always be obvious it was God acting. Outside of these, he let us choose things for ourselves. What college to attend, what job to work at, who to marry, what car to buy, and so on. In regards to God's plan for my life, he knew what choices I would make, and permitted them to happen. If something was incredibly outside his will, he would have done something to stop me from doing it. The Holy Spirit was still working repentance and greater holiness in me, but nothing dramatic. This felt almost deistic in nature, since it seemed like God wasn't very active in my life, at least not in any glaringly obvious way.

I had switched to this more laissez-faire belief because, for the life of me, I could not find any Bible passages indicating God had any strongly active roles in daily life. It didn't adversely affect my faith. My faith isn't founded upon how active God is in my daily life, but the death and resurrection of Jesus, which is a sure thing.

Since then I think I have swung to what seems to be a reasonable, happy medium. I didn't expect the issue to be addressed in the Small Catechism but it was. I think the way Martin Luther handled the questions is pretty good. Specifically, questions 108 and 110 for the explanation of the Small Catechisms address the question nicely. They indicate that God is presently active in sustaining the universe. That's something that I assumed for a long time. I take it to mean that if God were to stop tending to the universe it would fall apart. They also indicate that God actively provides needs.

This idea of God providing things on a daily basis is certainly more involved than the hands-off approach, but not so strongly active as to take on a Calvinistic perspective. I couple this with the notion of God having a perfect will and a permissive will. God provides and leads, but doesn't direct everything. Honestly, my take on God's will and my will are a post unto itself. So let us suffice to say that I think God is involved in my life, which is a comforting and (at least seemingly) true notion.

Devotionals

Back when I was going through the membership class with my hometown church's pastor, one of the things he offered me was the little daily devotional book published by the LCMS, "Portals of Prayer." Each day has two readings (from what I've seen, a New Testament reading and a Psalm) followed by a page-long message and a short prayer.

At first I was hesitant to read the book. Given the chance I would rather dig into deeper theological stuff. Such as reading the Defense of the Augsburg Confession, which I haven't had time to do for a while. However, after a couple weeks school started taking up a huge portion of my time and mental power. Suddenly, reading confessions wasn't so easy. But I wanted to continue getting some kind of dose of theology and Bible. That's where the devotional came in. The whole thing only takes a few minutes to go through. It's nice to have a planned reading for the day as well as a message to go with it. Whether it's had any impact on me isn't clear, but I still like it. It's certainly better than not having any Biblical readings at all.

"Sin Boldly"

Some time ago I came across an interesting quote from Martin Luther: "Sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly." Luther had a penchant for exaggeration in his writing. It seems like Luther is telling people to go ahead and sin it up. But that's not quite what he's talking about. The paragraph containing this statement reads as follows:

"If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong [sin boldly], but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2. Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign. It suffices that through God's glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day. Do you think such an exalted Lamb paid merely a small price with a meager sacrifice for our sins? Pray hard for you are quite a sinner."

The statement sticks out to me because, at face value, it really sounds antithetical to what Luther worked so many years for. Didn't he champion the notion that faith brings repentance? Where is repentance in flagrant sin?

What Luther is really saying is that we should admit we are sinful, accept it, and strive to serve God anyway. We don't always intend to sin. I don't go out of my way to swear when I hit my toe or get angry at someone. I may impulsively act selfish or arrogant. Sin's just a part of life. People react differently to their sinful nature. Some deny they ever sin. Others are hypocritical, claiming to be a godly person but hiding their faults. Others are aware of their sinfulness and stress about it every day. Here Luther says we should accept we are sinful, repent of them, then just plain live life. Your repentance won't be perfect, and at some point you'll fall. You might fall many times a day. That's part of being human. Yet as the quote above says, Jesus's sacrifice covers those sins because we are faithful.

We "sin boldly" when we admit we are sinful. The quote above invites us to trust in Jesus ever more, and continue to pray because of that sinfulness. This, I think, is a healthy and realistic view of ourselves. It brings me comfort to know that, although I continue to sin, I still remain saved. This leads me to continue living a faithful life.

Praying for the Deployed

In a recent church service I got a little emotional during the prayers. It seems to be standard that the church prayers include praying for those who are deployed in the military. When a member of the church congregation goes overseas, their name is put in the church's prayers, where we ask God to keep them safe and bring them home to us. And every week they're prayed for until they return.

It's kind of hard to explain why I felt moved by this. The aim of the church is to be a stable bastion in one's life. The Lutheran church in particular seems to do well at this. It's got robust organization and plenty of programs and activities that help people walk in their faith. Praying for deployed soldiers is the church's way of saying "We're gonna take care of you in whatever way we can until you return to us." The prayer itself asks for the soldier to be returned safely, since that's the desire of everyone in the congregation. It says to the soldier that he/she is in the church's thoughts, hearts, plans and prayers. In this aspect the church acts as that source of stability by extending emotional and spiritual support. And something about all that really moves me.

Reading the Augsburg Confession

After I went through the Small Catechism and a Revelation commentary, I found myself without ideas for a devotional. Then I remembered there was an entire book of Lutheran theology called the Book of Concord. So now I'm going through it on its website. First off is the Augsburg Confession! I'm almost done with it so after that, I'll provide a post reflecting what I've learned from it. I'll say this much: despite the older form of English it has, it's not terribly difficult to understand.