God's Agenda

Last week I shared some thoughts on a charge brought against God in Mary Doria Russell’s novel, The Sparrow. Faced with tragedy (and a priest’s unsatisfying response), one of the characters, Anne, cries: “What sticks in my throat is that God gets the credit but never the blame... Either God’s in charge or He’s not.”

I have a tendency to do this, to give God praise for the good things in life but to exonerate God in the wake of loss and pain. What am I supposed to tell the Annes in the world, though, when they cry foul?

Today I want to share one more thing about all of this. Anne insists, “Either God’s in charge or He’s not.” I, personally, don’t believe that God is “in charge.” At least, not in the way that she means.

I do believe that God has a plan for the world, and that one day God’s plan will be accomplished. That’s the promise of Revelation 21 and 22. Nothing will stop that, "For the Lord of hosts has planned, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?" (Isa 14:27) In that sense, God is in control and steering everything towards a particular outcome.

But I don’t believe that God plans and arranges everything that happens in the meantime, that all of the good and the bad in life are a part of God’s will.

Here’s what I believe about what God is up to in the world:

I believe that God works all things together for good for those who love him (Rom 8:28).

I believe that God’s plans are meant to prosper us and not to harm us, to give us a hope and a future. (Jer 29:11)

I believe that the Lord has multiplied his wondrous deeds and his thoughts toward us, that if I proclaimed and told of them, they’re more than can be told. (Ps 40:5)

I believe in a God who wants to make the world “very good” again (Gen 1:31), who doesn’t want anyone to perish (2 Pet 3:9), who’s going to destroy death (1 Cor 15:26) and the one who has the power of death, the devil (Heb 2:14). I believe in a God who came to earth to welcome outcasts, heal the sick, raise the dead, and, ultimately, taste death for everyone (Heb 2:9).

I give God the credit and not the blame because, to me, God’s agenda is only ever to work good for this world. That is God’s business day in, day out. Not orchestrating and running all things under heaven, but seeking the good, the salvation, and the eternal life of all. Anything else is a result, not of God’s desires or will, but of human sin or nature’s brokenness. That's the reason we don't always see things working together for good, why circumstances will harm us and not prosper us. Though they can't thwart God's eternal plans for us, human sin and nature's brokenness are powerful forces at work in the world that often do prevent God's desires for our lives here and now.

And those are exactly the things that Jesus sought to make right when he walked the earth: turning men and women from sin and bandaging up the wounds caused by a broken world.

That's how I see the Lord and the Lord’s work in the world.

Anne still may not be satisfied, I know. And maybe she's right. The picture in scripture is certainly messier and blurrier than these few verses make it sound. But this is the theology I live with. Every day I try to be one of this God's people. 

And, to me, that's not a God who deserves blame. That’s a God who inspires awe and gratitude.

Listen to today's devotional right here: