Brian and I and our wives (one each) went on a little group date last night – some dinner, some dessert, some discussion of reincarnation. You know, the usual.
Brian started it. “I don’t believe in it,” he disclaimered, “but I like reincarnation.” What he likes, it turns out, is the idea that we can start over and over and over with no end to our experience of the human experience. But, I pointed out, folks don’t remember their past lives. Experience without recall is a bummer.
And then we recalled Shirley MacLaine and others who have remembered their past lives quite publicly. And it’s odd, I said, that they all remember being Julius Caesar or Cleopatra or Joan of Arc and no one recalls shoveling fecal matter while working as a stable boy for Julius Caesar or being a snail on a rock for three days before being snuffed out when Cleoptra decided to take a seat one afternoon or being the guy whose second cousin knew a guy who once got turned down for a date by Joan of Arc. Nope. Every believer in reincarnation who remembers their past lives seems to only recall the lives in which they were awfully important and awfully comfortable.
Reminded me of something I heard recently. “My house sold in three weeks! In this market! That’s so God!”
Really? That’s so God? What if it didn’t sell? What then? Is that so not God?
Seems no matter which god we humans believe in, we’re all pretty big believers in Prosperity.
This is not to be as sarcastic as it will inevitably read. Would it be better to say “We really felt God’s hand in that?”
if the house hd not sold it would have been
“That’s so Raven”
I’m a dad…i am supposed to be cheesy!
I’ve been thinking about blogging on that very subject that you touched on at the end there. It’s so prosperity gospel… If the traffic was bad today, is God not with you today?
The captcha at the bottom of this page is asking me to type the word “hell” before I submit my comment. I am so offended.
It’s not, for me, a question of better or worse, right or wrong. It’s a question of accuracy. Are we describing the sovereignty (boundaries, control, influence, participation, power) of God accurately when we say the house selling is a God thing but getting cancer is not?
And when enough of us, me included, talk about God this way, limit God this way, does it change our understanding of who God is over time? Does that change in thinking bring about unfaithful changes in our behavior as well?
Could, for instance, I deal with a Christian holocaust? Is there room in my theology for a good God who is involved in humanity and loves me who is also involved in the death of thousands.
I’ve always thought of my husband’s illness and death as a “God thing.”
A young, vibrant man, a majority of whose waking moments were involved in ministry to church kids and poor gang families…why would he get sick months before his wedding day and die five years later at the age of just 29? I’ve never seen it as anything but a “God thing.” God had reasons–and I’ll never know them all here, confined to gravity and my small human brain–why He caused Mike’s life to burn white-hot for Him and then end young and with incredible suffering.
To me, anything that displays God’s glory, mercy, justice, patience or power is a “God thing.” A house that sells fast. A house that lingers on the market. A young death. A hundredth birthday. An average day. Everything is purposeful in God’s economy.
Despite the fact that I am intimidated by Mr. Groves stature I must say that I am in agreement with what Nancy Tyler says. And with her experience how could I disagree. Thanks Nancy.
Ub agreement with Kenyon and Nancy Tyler – I also know personally the God thing in loss. It is just SO like God to take my beloved husband home to be with Him – because He loved him long before I existed. Yes I’ve been known to use “God slang” – maybe if the term Awesome weren’t so trivialized we’d recall Jesus is not my boyfriend, God is not my daddy-o and the Holy Spirit is within me as a seal of my eternal life. It IS a God thing when you house sells, your dog dies and oh yeah -remember that original sin thing – it really happened.
Whew ::::stepping offa soap box – dizzy up there::::: hit my button didn’t ya?
Ub is not new evangelical slang – I messed up – how human of me! In agreement with the above mentioned people
It took two and a half years to sell our house … and finally for much less than we were expecting…
“That’s so God!”
So where does one draw the line between saying something is a “God Thing” and something “just happens”? Since God is sovereign, does that mean he is “in everything”… good, bad and ugly? Even the mundane?
“I was able to walk down stairs this morning.” Maybe for someone who was never supposed to be able to walk again that’s a God Thing, but for me, an everyday guy, is it?
Hey side note, possibly for a future blog Shaun, do you think God conforms to and works within culture, or does he work to change culture to be “better”? (Meaning, give freedom, end slavery, end poverty etc.) If God could give humans one world culture, his culture, what would it look like? Would it look like early Judaism and multiple wives, or “Christian America” (which I don’t believe is true) that we have today? I know we blew it with his original culture back in the Garden, but with sin in the world… what would “God’s Culture” look like?
–Brad
God answered, “The righteous will live by their faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4)
Habakkuk 3:1-2 & 17-19, This prayer was sung by the prophet Habakkuk:
“I have heard all about you, LORD, and I am filled with awe by the amazing things you have done. In this time of our deep need, begin again to help us, as you did in years gone by. Show us your power to save us. And in your anger, remember your mercy.”
…But…
17 “Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vine; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, 18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation. 19 The Sovereign LORD is my strength! He will make me as surefooted as a deer and bring me safely over the mountains.”
I know I’m a few days late on this discussion, but I’m very intrigued by it. My husband always says that if you go to most evangelical churches in America today, you’ll become convinced that God specializes in “real estate miracles” because you’re always hearing about how God has done a miraculous work in providing some beautiful big house for someone…
I was heard a story about a man who had a son. The son got sick and the people told the man, “That’s too bad.” But the man said, “Maybe it’s good. Maybe it’s bad. We don’t know.” The next day, his village was attacked and all the men had to go to war. The people told the man he was blessed b/c his son didn’t have to go. Again he said, “Maybe it’s good. Maybe it’s bad. We don’t know.”
The story goes back and forth like that, with the people pronouncing judgements about circumstances and the father telling them that we don’t have the wisdom to see if something is ultimately good or bad.
I think the same principle applies here. We don’t have the wisdom to see what Prosperity really is. I’m pretty sure that Mother Teresa, even though she had nothing, was pretty blessed.
Hi, nice post! Your hard work paid off