February 1, 2009

• Sorry to keep updating. I just keep thinking.

  "God Meant it for Good" by R.T. Kendall is about the Life of Joseph, which certainly reflected divine design!

  I have been thinking about the difference between providence and serendipity, design and chance.

  As one who became a "temple of the Lord" at the age of six, I don't really remember what it was like to be a non-Christian.  There was no earth shattering about-face for me, and sometimes I feel a bit envious when I hear stories told by those who know that they were completely and forever drastically changed when they accepted Christ as Lord and Savior.  There was nothing drastic for me, it was all quite smooth and natural.  It simply seemed the logical, right, natural thing to do. 

  I wonder then, how am I really different from those who do not believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life?  There is no physical difference.  There is no mental difference in that believing a certain way increases one's IQ.  God certainly makes it clear that there is a difference in the way that I live my life, which is to be in obedience to what He reveals in the Bible.  I also have a promise as to my eternal destiny, but that is not something that I can realize yet.  Perhaps another important difference is in the way one "sees" or interprets observable or unobservable events.  I have often wondered why unbelievers are described as "blind" in the Bible.

  Online Webster's Dictionary (I left my real dictionaries in Tokyo) defines serendipity as:  finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for.

  I might also like to include coincidence as a possible synonym: the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection.

  Providence:   divine guidance or care, God conceived as the power sustaining and guiding human destiny  (Destiny is defined by Webster's as: a predetermined course of events often held to be an irresistible power or agency.  Hmm-a question here is how big a role our free will plays in cooperating with or resisting the "irresistible power" and to what degree the events are predetermined.  In this case, could resisting what God is doing  be seen as "wrong" and moving according to what God reveals as His plan as "right?")  Could it be that God graciously and providentially keeps giving us things that pull us to Him and make us willing to do His Will?  Is it destiny that His Will and my will become the same?)

  One who knows that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life is able to see or at least able to trust that God's gracious, providential designing hand is at work in his life and that things do not merely happen by chance or by lucky or unlucky accident.  There is no such thing as luck, and chance is not a force, it is merely a mathematical expression of probablility.  Perhaps serendipity is a word that those who are are not acquainted with the Designer use to describe the design that they sense is there but cannot really see.

  This has something to do with why I like the quote below.  We can choose to align ourselves with God's way of seeing and doing things, or struggle against the current of God's flow.  At best, we waste our time crying over things that were meant to be blessings and miss out on joy.  At worst, we can even die spiritually in the process of living life according to a belief system that we create for ourselves rather than what God has said is true.

  "You are in charge of changing your own perspectives." - Old Hat 

  Serendipity might also be compared with grace (undeserved blessings from God) in that the things discovered or received were not looked for or chased after.

  Perhaps it is serendipity, coincidence and chance vs. grace, providence and design.  Well, I do not claim to be a philosopher.  Any ideas out there?

  • 23:53
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