If God wills...

In a country where I lived and worked for several years one often heard the phrase “Khudo khohad,” which equates to the Arabic phrase “Insh Allah.” We could translate this phrase along the lines of “If it is God's will.” In the culture where I lived, this phrase was frequently used to absolve oneself of responsibility for planning or for the outcome of one's actions. After all, the individual is not really in control, so what does it matter what one does? If God wants it to happen it will. If he doesn't, it won't. End of story.

This attitude permeated the culture in many ways, resulting in a fatalistic worldview. Why should one plan or work toward a better tomorrow when the future lies beyond one's control anyway? Why feel accountable for one's actions when we know that all things are really in God's control and not our own. If something happened, it must be God's will. If it doesn't happen, it obviously wasn't. Other factors come into play in this particular cultural context which only sharpen the fatalism, because in many ways people really do lack control over their world. One man had worked hard to build a couple rooms on his house for his family, only to have the whole property taken from him by the government overnight and bulldozed to make way for a prestigious government project. Although he received some minor compensation, all his efforts to plan, work and save for his family were reduced to naught without any opportunity for him to counteract it. In such a world fatalism seems to be a realistic worldview, but it isn't a very helpful one.

This mindset is quite contrary to the Western worldview in which I was raised. American culture teaches us that we can change our lives, that we are in control of our destinies, that we can make a difference in the world. This mentality runs through many Protestant churches as well. But does it sync with the teachings of Scripture? What do we do with a passage like James 4:13-17.

Instead you ought to say: “If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.”

This sounds a lot like saying “Khudo khohad” to me. Should we as Christians in fact be fatalistic? Does the sovereignty of God render our activity pointless?

I have wrestled with the question a lot in my life, at times actively, at other times passively. I come from a Reformed theological background, which emphasizes the sovereignty of God. But I look at the world and find that God exercises this sovereignty in baffling ways, allowing things to occur that must surely grieve God's heart. Other Christians claim to see God's sovereign hand in natural disasters and other tragedies, claiming that they are God's punishment for certain sins. This mentality stems from an Old Testament worldview, but isn't entirely incompatible with a strong view of God's sovereignty. However, I cannot accept that God acts in this way. It strikes me as far to capricious and arbitrary (especially since these claims always seem to relate to certain types of sin. I've never heard anyone say that hurricane Katrina was the punishment for the greed and consumerism of Americans, for example.)

If we adopt too strong a view of sovereignty, we become passive chess pieces in some divine game. We may think we have a say in the course of the game, but we don't really. Or if we allow for some individual freedom but insist on God having a clear and decisive plan for each person's life, we can spend our energy worrying constantly whether we are in or out of God's will. I grew up with this mindset. I understood that my goal in life was to fulfill God's plan for it. I understood that this plan would be clear to me if I simply prayed and sought wisdom. But experience has shown that sometimes God's will is rather unclear. In fact, God's plan seems to me more like a broad directive than a specific agenda for each day, week, month or year. Before I worried that if I stepped outside of God's will, if I moved off that clearly defined path he had laid out for me, I would basically be trashing my life. Now I see God's will more like the markers that illuminate the edge of the highway. Yes, there are areas I don't want to go, but there is a broad swath of possibilities that are fully within “God's will.” And don't even get me going on the idea that God has a “perfect someone” for each of us to marry.

I keep running up against this question of God's sovereignty and the extent to which what I do really matters. I don't think Scripture teaches us to our actions and decisions have no real meaning. But can we change the course of events, or are all things so completely determined that our choices have no real significance? I would not want to live in such a world, nor would I consider such a God particularly worthy of worship. I don't think God wants us to be mere automatons.

Interestingly, I found a new way to think of this after watching the movie MiB3. (I must say that I never imagined having my theology influenced by Men in Black!) In that movie, agents K and J meet Griffin, a fifth-dimensional being who sees multiple timelines simultaneously. To Griffin, all futures are possible until the point that an event occurs which then eliminates some of them, while opening up new alternatives. Because Griffin exists multi-dimensionally, none of the outcomes is fixed or determined, but he can see all of them as real because he can see what would happen should any particular event occur. What if God is in some manner like Griffin, only more so? What if God's sovereignty doesn't mean that an exact course is already fixed for each of us, but that God knows the ultimate outcome (the full restoration and redemption of the creation) and in God's multi-dimensional existence can simultaneously see all possible paths to that endpoint, without dictating that any particular one of them should occur?

I find that I need room in my theology for my actions and decisions to count, so that my life has meaning beyond simply preparing me for some heavenly future. I don't believe that God created me and placed me in this world simply so I could learn some lessons in preparation for eternity. I believe God calls me, and all people, to be co-creators, or at least co-workers in the process of bringing the kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. If one emphasizes too strongly God's sovereignty one can eliminate this element of human cooperation and render human life as a fully pre-determined set of events without real significance. One can also end up with a God who is distant and unmoved by the events of this world. Otherwise, surely God would act to rectify the injustices and sufferings of God's creation. If we believe that God does act, but through God's people without specifically compelling them to act, then we must allow room for flexibility in the working out of the divine will.

In a blog such as this I can only begin to touch on this deep topic. I have on my shelf a book I first read many years ago in seminary by Clark Pinnock and others entitled The Openness of God. This book caught my attention the first time I read it and it may be time for a second read. I know that it was not well received by many evangelical theologians because it directly challenges some long-held theological positions, but the questions the authors raise and the suggestions they make offer an alternative way to understand this tension between divine sovereignty and human action. If only Pinnock had had MiB3 to watch!

I have no nice conclusion to this post, because the issue remains open for me. I do not reject God's sovereignty, but I need to understand it in a way that allows for real, meaningful human action and freedom. I don't want to be reduced to saying “If God wills” and absolving myself from responsibility or action. On the other hand, I do want to recognize that my actions and plans still rest within the larger framework of God's actions in the world. That provides, as it were, a safety net, because I can have confidence that God remains in control even when I make the mistakes that I inevitably will.

Faith and Freedom

I often dread attending church on the Sunday nearest the 4^th of July, and particularly if the 4^th falls on a Sunday, which this year was fortunately not the case. Too often this Sunday becomes an orgy of religious patriotism, a fusion of God and country in which patriotic songs displace solid hymns and songs of praise to the true Lord and patriotic symbols are splashed across the sanctuary. It can be enough to make my stomach churn. I remember one Sunday some years ago in which I entered the sanctuary and saw the front wall covered in paper printed in miniature US flags. I don't know how I kept myself from turning around and walking out the door.

I am not unpatriotic. Well, I'm probably not as patriotic as many and probably not nearly enough so to satisfy many conservatives. I am not one to say “my country right or wrong,” nor do I believe that we are the greatest country on earth, as if the United States were God's gift to the rest of the world. I really don't think we're THAT special and I chafe at expressions of religious patriotism that imply that we are.

But I do love my country and I am glad that I had the privilege of being born here, growing up here and now have the privilege of living here. There is much I appreciate about being American and my appreciation has only deepened and strengthened through the years I have lived outside of this country. I grow teary-eyed at the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner and there are moments when the sight of Old Glory brings an emotional swell. But my experience living beyond this country's borders has opened my mind to other viewpoints and ways of life. I affirm much of what our culture values, but I don't uncritically embrace American culture nor do I view it as the pinnacle of development. We have much to give thanks for and it is appropriate to do so on this, our national holiday. But we must also as God's children always consciously recognize how far short we fall of realizing the fullness of God's kingdom on earth. As a nation we have done many positive, good things at home and around the world. But we have also sinned grievously against those within our borders and those outside them in pursuit of our own selfish interests – although we often fail to recognize and rarely accept the responsibility for the impact our selfish actions have on others. Unlike what some believe, our most glorious days do not lie in our past, as if we had climbed to some pinnacle of godliness and have sense fallen away. No, we have yet to embody the fullness of the message of the gospel of Jesus. We have failed to demonstrate love to our neighbors and to our enemies. No matter how much we would like to think of ourselves that way, we are not God's special nation, anointed uniquely by God to carry out the divine will on earth.

Today's worship service strayed a bit too much into a display of patriotism for my taste, though not as badly as I have seen and had feared might happen. The choir sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic, which is indeed a rousing song if one can put aside all the background and negative implications carried by it. A soloist performed God Bless America, never one of my favorite songs because most often it seems to be a demand and expectation as much as a plea and petition – as if we deserve God's blessing because we are, after all, God's nation. But the soloist did a nice job and we as the congregation were asked only to listen, not to join in. The sermon avoided any statements of patriotic sentiment, except for one tongue-in-cheek comment about Canada Day because the pastor giving the sermon is actually Canadian and today is, after all, Canada Day.

One song, our closing hymn for the service, actually raised my spirit far more than any of the patriotic songs or other hymns we heard during the morning. We sang the hymn Lift Every Voice and Sing, often referred to as “The Black National Anthem.” I first sang this song more than twenty years ago when I worked in inner-city Philadelphia with Tony Campolo's Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education. This hymn, along with several other black spirituals, spoke really powerfully to myself and my fellow volunteers as we worked alongside some of the poorest communities in our country, most of them consisting predominantly of black people. Songs such as Lift Every Voice raise the cry of a population that has not enjoyed the full blessings of liberty and freedom that many of us and our ancestors have. It serves as a reminder to all of us how much we still have to attain. As it has done for over a century for those suffering under oppression and injustice, it also offers us strength and hope that come from faith enduring and strengthening through dark days. I'm not ready to lobby for this song to replace the Star-Spangled Banner as our national anthem, but I would love to hear it become a more frequent part of our national repertoire.

If asked, I would not say I am proud to be an American, because I think pride is not the right word. I think pride leads to (or perhaps arises from?) arrogance, and arrogance is never pleasing to God. Unfortunately it seems to be one of the hallmarks of American identity in the world today and one of the chief reasons that many around the world despise us. I think that we as a nation need to adopt a more humble posture, not kindle greater national pride. This does not mean we should not be grateful to be Americans. It does not mean we shouldn't appreciate the benefits and blessings that come with our citizenship. They are a gift. But our true citizenship lies not in this nation, but in a kingdom that does not have physical boundaries on this earth. So as we celebrate our freedom this week, let us continue to give even greater thanks for the freedom we have in Christ and raise our lift our voices and sing on behalf of those who do not yet know freedom.  

Our Wall of Shame

I grew up in a world where the biggest perceived threat my country faced came from that place that our president-at-the-time labeled the “evil empire.” This evil empire, also known as the Soviet Union, exercised control or direct influence over a number of other countries, among them those in Eastern Europe know as the Warsaw Pact. One symbol came to define this evil empire and its satellite states: the Berlin Wall.


I won't detail here the history of the Berlin Wall. Thankfully, on November 9, 1989, while I was a student at university, this wall came down. It happened quite suddenly in the end and rather unexpectedly. The removal of this wall symbolized the victory of freedom over repression.




Twenty-some years later I find myself living in southern Arizona, not too far from the border with Mexico. We can't see it from here, but I could drive there in about an hour. This border has been the source of much controversy over the years, a controversy that only seems to be growing stronger in these years of economic downturn. In some places the United States government has erected a wall to keep out the unwanted migrants from the south. Many voices, including one that to my great relief just lost a by-election for our congressional district, advocate finishing this wall along the entire border and even doubling it just to be safe. The country that once celebrated the destruction of a wall in defense of freedom now builds one of its own. 

Some may see a significant difference between these two walls. I acknowledge that there are differences, but I'm not so certain that the underlying motive in building the two walls is all that different. Both the German Democratic Republic and the United States of America build or built their wall out of fear. The GDR feared losing too many of its citizens. The USA fears being swamped by too many migrants, despite that fact that we are a nation of immigrants.


In our region of southern Arizona, most people talk of “border security.” All conservatives and most liberals speak of the need to defend our border. Few, if any, dare suggest that we look for an alternative to bigger fences and more border guards. The climate of fear and defensiveness is too dominant.

I don't pretend that the issues are simple, but I find myself asking increasingly whether there's a different way than what has been or is currently being pursued. Especially as a follower of Jesus, I wonder whether instead of trying to keep migrants out because of our fear (whether it is based on economics, crime, or as is often the underlying issue, racism) we are called to a radically different approach. I read the Bible and hear God telling their people to welcome foreigners, to remember that they too were once foreigners in Egypt. The underlying ethic welcomes the other, not excludes them. Admittedly, Israel all-too-seldom practiced this in its own history, but we look not to their example but to the ideal that God set before them.

I am ashamed that my country, one of the wealthiest on earth with a standard of living that remains among the world's highest, a country that is built on immigration, now seeks to exclude others and particularly does so by erecting walls and physical barriers. I do not think that we really face the threat of being overwhelmed by migrants should we adopt a more humane, open policy. In fact, immigrants have been the strength of our nation, have spurred our economic growth and enriched our cultural stew.


A friend of mine offered a radical suggestion to reform American immigration policy. He stated that the government should welcome the poorest immigrants, the ones who are most oppressed, marginalized and hopeless in their home countries, and allow them to begin a new life here, Their energy and motivation could provide a helpful stimulus to our economy, while giving them opportunities they would never have at home. At the same time, the wealthy, highly-educated immigrants who we prefer to welcome today should be turned away so that they can utilize their skills in developing their own countries. Again, the idea needs some further development, but the underlying principle appeals to me because it speaks of the justice and grace that should distinguish God's kingdom. If those who call themselves by the name of Christ in the United States really want to demonstrate their allegiance to God's kingdom, our attitude and response to immigrants would be one good place for some radical change.

Faith, Failure and Freedom

I think I can safely say that every parent has dreams and hopes for their children. I certainly do. For Christians (and probably for followers of other religions), one of those hopes is that our children will grow to accept and walk in the faith that we profess. We take our kids to Sunday School and to youth programs, send them to summer camps and engage in conversations about faith around the home so that they will hear the stories of the Bible and embrace the Gospel message. We try in various ways to lay the foundation of faith, hoping that our children will acknowledge, accept and choose to build on this foundation. Some try to accomplish this more through a form of indoctrination. Some think they have succeeded when their child prays a “sinner's prayer.” Others try to pass on faith through their life, sharing with their children the stories of Scripture as well as the stories of their own journey of faith.

Unfortunately, sometimes (often?) our dreams and hopes for our children are not realized. Sometimes they are not realized in small ways. Other times the gap between reality and our dreams can be quite large. At this point in my life, I face a large gap in regard to my hopes for my teenage daughter. She has made it clear to her mother and I that she does not consider herself to be a Christian. She acknowledges the existence of God but believes that he either doesn't care about people or that he doesn't demonstrate it very well. These are hard words to hear from one's own child. Even harder to hear are her struggles with how to live consistently with her current beliefs. Her parents work with a particular Christian ministry and everyone in our home church knows this. She recognizes that it might be awkward for her parents if she expresses her doubts and disbelief around others from our church. She doesn't want to create problems for us, but her efforts to avoid this leave her feeling like she lacks integrity. We continue to insist that she accompany us to worship on Sunday because we believe it is true and important, but this places her in the difficult position of feeling like a hypocrite.

Her mother and I have both had conversations with her about this. We have not sought to convince her of the correctness or truth of the Gospel. She knows the stories and the Gospel message well enough. She's been in Christian schools, churches and circles all her life. She doesn't need more indoctrination. She needs someone who will accept and affirm her as she is now, where she is now. Her mother and I are trying very hard to give her this. Now that we are more aware of her feeling of being a hypocrite, we have expressed to her that she should freely acknowledge her current beliefs and doubts and questions, even in the church community. We are capable of dealing with the questions and even possible rejection that may arise as a result. We would rather our daughter be sincere about where she's at then place her in a duplicitous position just so we can present a shining example of Christian family. We hope we have communicated clearly to her that in our family there is freedom to question, doubt, even disbelief and still find acceptance and love.

I often feel frustrated by the posts I see on Facebook of various Christian families we know. I am not accusing any of them of lying, because I don't know the internal lives of their families well enough. But so many posts I read seem to present the particular family in the best possible light, as paragons of Christian virtue. Maybe they are. However, I think that within Christian subculture, particularly evangelical subculture, we create intentionally or unintentionally the pressure to present ourselves as better than we really are. We feel subtle or even overt pressure to have the perfect Christian family with children who love nothing more than to get up in front of the church and sing “Jesus loves me.” Thank God for those whose children really do enjoy that. Mine would die of mortification at the thought—and would be hypocritical to boot. Sometimes I wish I had one of these ideal Christian families. Then I realize that I'd rather have a family where we can struggle openly and honestly with our doubts, questions and fears. We don't have to have all the right answers. We don't have to have all our ducks in a row. I hope that our family can be a place where grace and love prevail.

As I consider where my daughter is at right now, I also struggle with feelings of failure. Where did I as her father go wrong? What should I have done differently to insure that she would grow up to wholeheartedly embrace the faith I try to live by? I can look at the journey of our life and wonder how things might have been different if we had made choice B instead of choice A. I've spent a lot of time in the past few months feeling like a failure, for this and other reasons. It's not a pleasant place to be. I don't claim that I have not made mistakes in parenting. My decisions have not always been ideal, but I don't live in an ideal world. In my world we do our best to decide and live wisely, but we make mistakes and fail and learn and, hopefully, grow in the process. I still beat myself up at times over my failures and their impact on my daughter, my son and my wife. But I'm learning to accept God's grace to me as well and to trust that he is able to work through all these choices, through my failure and my brokenness and the impact this has had on others in my life. Some how out of all of this I hope and trust that he can make beautiful things, that he can accomplish good in my life and the lives of my family. And I keep hoping and believing and trusting that he is not yet done with my daughter. Her journey has only begun and I intend to keep walking alongside her wherever it leads.

Letting Go

Yesterday on her blog Elizabeth Esther wrote:

“Sometimes I think I deserve a well-planned life. One with backup plans and contingency plans and no interruptions.”

I can relate well to her. I might not deserve such a life, but I certainly wish for one. I want a world in which everything is neat and orderly, where there's a place for everything and everything is in its place—speaking not only of the physical objects that make up my life. Life, at least for me, rarely if ever seems to cooperate with my plans.

In the oft-cited verse Jeremiah 29:11 God says:

“I know the plans I have for you...plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you hope and a future.”

Encouraging words, but often they seem so far from the reality of daily life. We overlook or forget the context of these words—a letter written to the Jewish exiles living in Babylon. I doubt that most of them had planned or expected to find themselves living there. They didn't want to be there. But God tells them to settle in and prepare for an extended stay. He even tells them to seek the peace and prosperity of the city where they now live—the city of their conquerors. And in the midst of this, he tells them that he knows his plans for them. I wonder how they felt when they received this message.

Last year I saw my life turned on its head. Quite suddenly and unexpectedly I had to leave the place I had been living for some time. I had to leave the work I was in, just as it seemed it was finally making some headway. I had to say good-bye to dear friends. Some would say I should have been delighted because I had to return to the land of my birth. Sure, this had some potential positives, but I lost all that had formed my identity. Thankfully I didn't go off as a prisoner in a train of captives, but the pain may have only been marginally less. I began a downward spiral into despair and discouragement.

As I struggled through this time of transition and loss, I kept trying to cling to bits and pieces of my former life. I didn't want to have to die to it all. But God kept pushing me. He was relentless. I'd surrender another piece and hope that it was the final one, only to find him pressing me to take the next step. I wrote about this in December, describing it as a process of de-formation. In January I reached the lowest point, lying awake several nights in a row, far away from my family and any comfort. (I was traveling on business at the time.) I let go of the last pieces of my earlier existence that I was still clinging to.

Since returning from that trip I feel like I have stepped out of the darkness into the light of a new day. Having released everything, having died to all that I held dear, I found a new freedom. I was holding on to what I wanted to do—things that I believed God wanted me to do, because at one point in time he had given me those tasks—and this kept me from letting him lead me in a new direction. I'm reminded again of a line from one of my favorite Michael Card songs:

“We can't imagine the freedom we find from the things we leave behind.”

I still don't know clearly what the future holds. I'm exploring new avenues and new opportunities. Uncertainty seems to be the new normal for me. But I'm learning to live in faith, to walk day by day without backup and contingency plans, without feeling like I'm the one in control. Elizabeth Esther speaks of failing forward. I hear you, sister. Let's be bold in our failure and in the process find grace and the freedom to let God make us new.

The Things We Leave Behind

This summer our family had to make the difficult and painful decision to leave our home in Central Asia and return to the United States for a time. We have lived overseas for several years and had established our primary home there. Now we must dispose of all the things we have acquired and shipped there over the years because, while we plan to return in the future, that will not happen for at least three years due to the needs of our children. Central Asia does not have self-storage units for rent, our local friends generally have very small apartments, and our other foreign friends live transient lives just as we do. This leaves us with limited options for long-term storage. With this in mind my wife and I returned here this month to sell and give away most of our things. We will bring a few personal items back with us, but the vast majority of our belongings will be better off remaining behind.

Michael Card sings a song entitled “Things we leave behind.” In it he reminds us that: “We can't imagine the freedom we find, from the things we leave behind.” I've always liked this song. Now I have the opportunity to embrace that freedom wholeheartedly. But while I affirm the idea and even the result, the process of freeing oneself from one's possessions is painful and tedious. I suppose it would be easier if we just decided to part with everything, because then we wouldn't have to look at each item and decide whether it is important enough to hang on to. Because we do want to hang on to a few things though, especially those things that are important to our children, we must go through that process and after several days of it we are weary and sad. We know that we don't need most of the things we will pass on and in fact are filled with joy at the prospect of blessing our friends with many of them, but almost every item has some memories attached to it and letting go comes at an emotional price, be it large or small. Yes, we find freedom in the things we leave behind. But breaking those chains hurts.

Yesterday we moved out our children's bedroom furniture. On the one hand I was delighted to see it go, because it feels like a big step in emptying the house. I also knew that the items were going to people who could really use them and I found joy and comfort in that. But my wife and I also felt sadness seeing it go, because it was a tangible indicator that we do not expect to return here with our children, who will be ready for college by the time we expect to come back. We hope they will come to visit, maybe even for an extended period, but we don't expect them to live with us regularly here again. As has so often been the case in my life, joy tastes somewhat bittersweet.

I look forward to coming out on the other side of this process and enjoying the freedom of the things we have left behind. As we establish ourselves in the US again, I want to avoid accumulating things, although I know this will be the natural inclination. Our culture compels us in that direction, but I want to hold on to the freedom that I am gaining this month. Although bittersweet, it is truly liberating.

Freedom!

I love Romans chapter 8. Unfortunately I live too much of my life in chapter 7. Intellectually I completely affirm that my sins and failures are removed by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. I know that I am a new man because of him. But practically, I still struggle with these things. I still fall short, pretty much daily. And often when I fall short I go into a lengthy process of self-recrimination. I pray and ask for forgiveness. I declare my desire to repent. But then I keep doing these things as if I were uncertain that God had really accepted my prayer. I live as though my debt is not paid and that I have to pay it off by my earnest efforts to seek forgiveness and repentance. I am very good at beating myself up over my failures.

That's why I love Romans 8:1. "Therefore there is now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Those are such great words of freedom, freedom that I am learning to embrace and live in. I am learning that when I fail, when I sin, when I fall short of the mark, I can ask for forgiveness in humble repentance. And then I can choose to receive that forgiveness and move forward or I can dwell in the mire of self-recrimination, telling myself how worthless and sorry I am that I missed the mark yet again. I don't think that's what God wants from me. But it is a hard habit to break.

I'm loving the freedom I am beginning to experience in Christ: the freedom to be forgiven, imperfect, flawed. Freedom can be a difficult thing to live with though. Why else does religion seem to inherently go back to a system of observing rules and making payment for one's failures through some means, be it a sacrifice, an act of penance or as in my case simply going through a process of feeling bad and kicking myself for a period of time over my shortcoming. We're offered grace but instead we want a system of merits and demerits.

I don't want to trivialize sin. I don't intend to trivialize the atonement the Jesus provides through his blood. It's only because of that atoning blood that I can speak of and live in this freedom. But precisely because of that blood I can be free. I don't need to keep working for my forgiveness in any manner. It's already offered and given. I just need to choose to accept it and live in it.

How good it feels to be free!