Does God Run Our Lives?

Among the members of our church staff, I'm known as the one who believes in God's sovereignty (the word refers to God being charge of the world and what happens in it) to an extent that most of the other staff members do not. I also believe in some degree of predestination where God decides certain things ahead of time and irresistibly brings them to pass.

The Question of the Extent of God's Involvement. The question for me is not, "Does God intrude into our lives?" but "To what extent does God intrude?" There are those who believe that everything they do is scripted by God and they have no choice about anything. Did I have oatmeal for breakfast? That was God's doing. Did I exceed the speed limit on the way to work? God again. Did my neighbor's son overdose on drugs and die at the age of 14? It had to be God. There's an old joke about a woman falling down the stairs and injuring her leg. "Well, I'm glad that is over," she says. Implied is the question, "I wonder what's next on God's list for me?"

I've just begun reading the first novel (See details below) in Vilhelm Moberg's series about Swedish immigrants coming to Minnesota. One of the characters suffers a broken hip when a big stone he is trying to move out of the soil falls back on him. Moberg describes the character's attitude toward the accident with these words:

"The invalid was not bitter. His belief was that all things happened according to God's preordination. It was his conviction that God in the beginning had decided that a stone in his field-on a certain day, at a certain hour-would roll back into its hole. He would miss his foothold and fall, the stone would break his hip joint, and he would ever after crawl about like a wing-broken magpie. It would be presumptuous of him to question the Creator." (page 11)

Most of the people I talk with do not believe that God is that involved in their lives. They see God's involvement in a broader sense: that God's will for the world and humanity will ultimately triumph, that believers in Christ will someday be like Christ, or that good will triumph over evil.

My Guiding Principles. Do I believe that God "butts" into our lives? Yes, to an extent. Here are three principles that guide me:

A. I believe the Bible when it speaks of God's creation of the world and God's desire for good things in our lives.
B. I believe the Bible when it speaks of the consummation of all things and the triumph of God.
C. I believe that prayer works, and prayer is certainly God affecting our lives.

I don't believe any of the above things are truly possible unless God acts in and, to some extent, controls our lives.

Where I draw the Line. However, I do not believe that God orders and controls every aspect of our lives. If that were so, we would not be responsible for breaking God's laws and incurring the wrath of God for our sinfulness. A person cannot be totally controlled by God and yet be condemned by God for doing what God made him do. If sin and punishment have any meaning, then we must be people with free will. That means that God has decided to allow us to go off on our own and take the consequences for our free actions.

The Middle Approach. Between total divine control of our lives and a total hands-off divine approach, I lean to a position somewhere in the middle. As I used to tell my Bible classes when I taught in a Christian high school: "God's action is foundational in some way in our salvation." The same applies to the other areas of our lives. What that involvement is, I can't say. My responsibility is to worship God and do my best to live a life that pleases and honors God. I leave the rest to God.

Comfort in God's Involvement. Does the idea of God "running" my life bother me? On the contrary, I find it comforting that I'm not alone in this world. I find it comforting that behind everything that exists and that will come to be, there is an all-powerful, loving God.

Source:

Vilhelm Moberg, The Emigrants (St. Paul, MN: Borealis Books, 1951). Note: The original Swedish version was published in 1949.