My Father in law runs a men's get together. There's warm food a fire on a back patio and there's always a wise man who share's something honest and encouraging. Last month my father in law asked me if I could be that man who did the sharing. I said yes and after acknowledging to the men who had gathered that I couldn't come up with something honest and encouraging I shared something honest. This is what I said...
Welcome to AA.
My name is Chris and I'm an agnostic. This is agnostics anonymous and it's been 3 weeks since my last doubt.
Now I know what you're thinking... C’mon, it's ok to have the odd doubt every so often. Maybe you could have one with dinner. Or go out with friends after work and have one. But me, I'm more of a binge doubter, once I get started it's hard to stop.
Now I know that usually these kind of talks are supposed to start with me telling you about how I used to have all these doubts but then God did something miraculous and now I'm certain that God exists and that God has some grand plan for my life. That I no longer believe that my life is a series of random crappy events but that there is a great plan and I now know exactly what it is. Well, I’m sorry. It doesn’t.
In the past I suspect that people have thought that I don’t think God has some sort of plan for my life. That I thought my life was a series of random crappy events, and they have put arms around me and said “Chris, God has a plan for your life” and I've smiled and thought well it's a pretty friggin’ crappy plan so far.
Now, I should say, for your sake I hope you disagree with me. I think it’s probably easier going with “God has a plan for my life, and I can see God working things out to make this plan happen”. To be honest, thinking that way will probably just make your life easier all round.
So you might ask why would I think that my life is just a series of meaningless random events? Why would I think that God has no grand plan for my life?
Well here's a quick sketch…
---
Welcome to AA.
My name is Chris and I'm an agnostic. This is agnostics anonymous and it's been 3 weeks since my last doubt.
Now I know what you're thinking... C’mon, it's ok to have the odd doubt every so often. Maybe you could have one with dinner. Or go out with friends after work and have one. But me, I'm more of a binge doubter, once I get started it's hard to stop.
Now I know that usually these kind of talks are supposed to start with me telling you about how I used to have all these doubts but then God did something miraculous and now I'm certain that God exists and that God has some grand plan for my life. That I no longer believe that my life is a series of random crappy events but that there is a great plan and I now know exactly what it is. Well, I’m sorry. It doesn’t.
In the past I suspect that people have thought that I don’t think God has some sort of plan for my life. That I thought my life was a series of random crappy events, and they have put arms around me and said “Chris, God has a plan for your life” and I've smiled and thought well it's a pretty friggin’ crappy plan so far.
Now, I should say, for your sake I hope you disagree with me. I think it’s probably easier going with “God has a plan for my life, and I can see God working things out to make this plan happen”. To be honest, thinking that way will probably just make your life easier all round.
So you might ask why would I think that my life is just a series of meaningless random events? Why would I think that God has no grand plan for my life?
Well here's a quick sketch…
At this point in the talk I gave a short overview of my life focusing on all the crappy things that have happened to me. About ten different main events. Some of which I'd rather not publish on a public forum like this blog. So you'll just have to imagine.
So that is why I think that life is just a series of meaningless random events. Now, by giving you this quick sketch I’m not trying to show that I’m exceptional or deserving of extra sympathy. In fact quite the opposite I suspect that many of you could sketch out your life in similarly depressing terms.
Now whilst most of the time I remain convinced that my life is just a series of random meaningless events every so often something happens. Something that makes me think "hang on, maybe God does have a grand plan for my life"
One example was about 4 or 5 years ago.
We as a family felt called to leave our suburb. We couldn't find a church, couldn't connect with our rum drinking footy loving rev head neighbours. Our kids didn't get into the local schools we wanted and, the church we found, my wife's job and the school our kids were going to were all right near my wife's family who we were increasingly relying on after my son's autism diagnosis. It felt like God was clearly telling us leave the suburb.
Now whilst most of the time I remain convinced that my life is just a series of random meaningless events every so often something happens. Something that makes me think "hang on, maybe God does have a grand plan for my life"
One example was about 4 or 5 years ago.
We as a family felt called to leave our suburb. We couldn't find a church, couldn't connect with our rum drinking footy loving rev head neighbours. Our kids didn't get into the local schools we wanted and, the church we found, my wife's job and the school our kids were going to were all right near my wife's family who we were increasingly relying on after my son's autism diagnosis. It felt like God was clearly telling us leave the suburb.
The other example was a couple of weeks ago.
We had chosen to take our kids out of the school they were in (mainstream education was starting to clash with my daughter) and put them in a school closer to where we lived, the bank had rejected our loan application (so we could move house and live closer to my wife's family), quite a few of the local kids had started playing in our back yard (there are no decent parks walking distance from our house and we've got some fun things in the backyard). It felt like God was clearly telling us to stay in the suburb.
When these things happen I get this warm fuzzy feeling and I wonder is this God showing me the plan for my life? Am I experiencing the divine? But then I also wonder maybe, maybe it was just the dodgy left over pizza I ate last night. I just don’t know.
A few years ago I started thinking where did the whole idea of “God has a plan for your life” come from? I’d heard many people argue that in Romans 8:29 Paul describes us as predestined and therefore that means it was God’s plan for me to marry my wife, it was God’s plan for me to have two kids, it was God’s plan for me to be a stay at home Dad. But, yet this is what that verse in Romans says. “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” God’s plan is not for what I would do but what I would be like. That I would become more and more like Christ. And that is all. I might thank God every day that I met my wife and somehow convinced her to marry me, that I have beautiful kids and get to stay at home with them. I just don’t think it was part of a grand plan.
Further more, a life littered with crappy random events is exactly what many of our Biblical heroes experienced.
• Moses: After meeting God on the mountain came down to see the golden calf
• John Baptist: After baptising Jesus ends up in prison, as his disciples recount all the things that Jesus is doing, all in line with his original calling, I can just imagine John thinking the one thing that is missing is the captives being set free. Then he is beheaded
• Paul: After preaching the gospel discovers that the razor gang has been following behind him corrupting all his work telling people they had to be circumcised.
• And Jesus famously cries “My God My God why have you forsaken me” I've heard many people downplay this as just a wink to Psalm 22, Jesus saying everything will be cool. I think it's left in Aramaic and not Hebrew or even Greek deliberately to show it is a very human cry for help. All the nightmares that he worried would happen as he prayed and sweated profusely in the Garden Of Gethsamne are coming true
Random crappy events and painful disappointment is the standard experience of our biblical heroes.
And if I'm honest with myself, my plan of a comfortable life in say Fremantle with a six figure income doing a job where I can be creative and independent and a family who unconditionally adored me. That kind of life probably would not have made me more like Christ. It would not have helped me identify with the poor, unemployed, divorced, disabled and all the people who Jesus identifies with.
Now, you may wonder given this rather depressing sounding perspective on life what keeps me going? Simply this. The more I try to live and love as Jesus did the more I feel human. The more I try to be like Jesus (failing as I often do) the more I feel like this is who I am supposed to be. Despite prayers to the contrary God has not spared me from the storms of life instead he has taught me how to dance in the rain. God does not have a plan for my life which I can relax into and know it’s all under control. God is shaping me to become more like Christ and that does not exclude me from experiencing the painful, disappointing random events that everyone else does.
A few years ago Mother Teresa’s journals were published and it was revealed that she had doubts. To me that seemed completely unsurprising. As the levels of poverty around her, that she felt called to alleviate, would have seen insurmountable. I bet she had doubts when all the second hand shoes for her order arrived and I bet she had doubts while she we waited for everyone else to take shoes and she squeezed her feet in to the last ill-fitting remaining pair. But, I also bet as she put the ideal of last first and first last in her bones she felt like this is what it means to be like Jesus, to be fully human. I’m not the sort of person who can argue evidence that demands a verdict and convince you of the Christian faith that way. But I can tell you that there is something in my bones tells me this is what it means to be human and to live life abundantly.
The big thing I have learnt in my life is that God's plan for my life is simply to be more and more like Christ. To be like Christ means that like Moses, John and Paul to be faithful is often to follow God to a place where I too will be screaming "My God My God why have you forsaken me." Where things are random, painful and make no sense.
In my best moments I try not ask God please give me a child without autism, a better salary, a house in a suburb without a methamphetamine lab across the street and without a school with a bullying problem. Instead I try to pray “Lord fix my soul” make me more like Jesus “Lord fix my soul”.
Now, because Mike usually asks me “did you bring your guitar” we’re going to finish singing a song called “Lord fix my Soul” Would you be up for that? I love this song as it’s not a cry for God to fix everything else and make it more like my image of heaven but a confession that I am the one who needs fixing to become more like Christ. Ok, now this song comes with a warning. It’s very theologically correct. In Philippians 3:8 Paul describes the things we usually value as excrement. The message describes translates the word as “dog dung” but in the original Greek the word is the roughest colloquial term for poo? Can anyone guess what that might be?
When these things happen I get this warm fuzzy feeling and I wonder is this God showing me the plan for my life? Am I experiencing the divine? But then I also wonder maybe, maybe it was just the dodgy left over pizza I ate last night. I just don’t know.
A few years ago I started thinking where did the whole idea of “God has a plan for your life” come from? I’d heard many people argue that in Romans 8:29 Paul describes us as predestined and therefore that means it was God’s plan for me to marry my wife, it was God’s plan for me to have two kids, it was God’s plan for me to be a stay at home Dad. But, yet this is what that verse in Romans says. “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” God’s plan is not for what I would do but what I would be like. That I would become more and more like Christ. And that is all. I might thank God every day that I met my wife and somehow convinced her to marry me, that I have beautiful kids and get to stay at home with them. I just don’t think it was part of a grand plan.
Further more, a life littered with crappy random events is exactly what many of our Biblical heroes experienced.
• Moses: After meeting God on the mountain came down to see the golden calf
• John Baptist: After baptising Jesus ends up in prison, as his disciples recount all the things that Jesus is doing, all in line with his original calling, I can just imagine John thinking the one thing that is missing is the captives being set free. Then he is beheaded
• Paul: After preaching the gospel discovers that the razor gang has been following behind him corrupting all his work telling people they had to be circumcised.
• And Jesus famously cries “My God My God why have you forsaken me” I've heard many people downplay this as just a wink to Psalm 22, Jesus saying everything will be cool. I think it's left in Aramaic and not Hebrew or even Greek deliberately to show it is a very human cry for help. All the nightmares that he worried would happen as he prayed and sweated profusely in the Garden Of Gethsamne are coming true
Random crappy events and painful disappointment is the standard experience of our biblical heroes.
And if I'm honest with myself, my plan of a comfortable life in say Fremantle with a six figure income doing a job where I can be creative and independent and a family who unconditionally adored me. That kind of life probably would not have made me more like Christ. It would not have helped me identify with the poor, unemployed, divorced, disabled and all the people who Jesus identifies with.
Now, you may wonder given this rather depressing sounding perspective on life what keeps me going? Simply this. The more I try to live and love as Jesus did the more I feel human. The more I try to be like Jesus (failing as I often do) the more I feel like this is who I am supposed to be. Despite prayers to the contrary God has not spared me from the storms of life instead he has taught me how to dance in the rain. God does not have a plan for my life which I can relax into and know it’s all under control. God is shaping me to become more like Christ and that does not exclude me from experiencing the painful, disappointing random events that everyone else does.
A few years ago Mother Teresa’s journals were published and it was revealed that she had doubts. To me that seemed completely unsurprising. As the levels of poverty around her, that she felt called to alleviate, would have seen insurmountable. I bet she had doubts when all the second hand shoes for her order arrived and I bet she had doubts while she we waited for everyone else to take shoes and she squeezed her feet in to the last ill-fitting remaining pair. But, I also bet as she put the ideal of last first and first last in her bones she felt like this is what it means to be like Jesus, to be fully human. I’m not the sort of person who can argue evidence that demands a verdict and convince you of the Christian faith that way. But I can tell you that there is something in my bones tells me this is what it means to be human and to live life abundantly.
The big thing I have learnt in my life is that God's plan for my life is simply to be more and more like Christ. To be like Christ means that like Moses, John and Paul to be faithful is often to follow God to a place where I too will be screaming "My God My God why have you forsaken me." Where things are random, painful and make no sense.
In my best moments I try not ask God please give me a child without autism, a better salary, a house in a suburb without a methamphetamine lab across the street and without a school with a bullying problem. Instead I try to pray “Lord fix my soul” make me more like Jesus “Lord fix my soul”.
Now, because Mike usually asks me “did you bring your guitar” we’re going to finish singing a song called “Lord fix my Soul” Would you be up for that? I love this song as it’s not a cry for God to fix everything else and make it more like my image of heaven but a confession that I am the one who needs fixing to become more like Christ. Ok, now this song comes with a warning. It’s very theologically correct. In Philippians 3:8 Paul describes the things we usually value as excrement. The message describes translates the word as “dog dung” but in the original Greek the word is the roughest colloquial term for poo? Can anyone guess what that might be?
(Then we sang this song together)
Now when you go home and your wife asks "what did you do" you can say someone told us God no plan for your life, sang a gospel song with lots of swearing and everyone was smiling by the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment