It can take ten thousand years for the light from the most distant stars in our galaxy to reach us.
And if the speed of light can be so slow, if its story unravels so glacially, why are we astonished when we fail to immediately understand the story of our lives?
* * *
Joseph, in the well, abandoned, betrayed.
All his dreams of glory—had come to this.
It seemed utterly meaningless–because the next chapter had not yet to be written.
* * *
Joseph in charge of Potiphar’s household.
The shepherd boy becomes the head butler in an Egyptian country house.
Was that the meaning of the well, and the humiliations of slavery at the hands of the hairy Ishmaelites?
Only part of it. The story was still being written. He was a character in a story someone else was writing. How could he understand his own story in medias res?
* * *
The dungeon, punishment for righteousness.
“But, Lord, I thought I understood the plot you were writing. Now WHAT are you doing?”
Utterly forsaken.
* * *
But the dungeon was the way for the butler of a small manor to meet royalty.
Again, God blessed Joseph. Again, he rose to the top. And once again, apparent failure and humiliation were the means of Joseph’s elevation to an entirely different social, economic and political circle.
Let no one underestimate the creativity of the Master Craftsman of the Universe.
* * *
We cannot understand the story of our lives while we are living them.
We do not understand the significance of each plot element yet. They seem random, inexplicable, and cruel. It takes the retrospective glance to understand.
* * *
And my story? It has foolishness in it, ah so much—money and opportunity and years and talents squandered.
It has sin in it, my sin, and sins against me. It has apparent dead ends, missed opportunities, wastage, stupidity and heartbreak.
* * *
And because a master artist is still working on it, still writing it, it has gold in it, infinite possibilities for redemption.
I do not yet know how God will weave all the plot elements together into an eternal beautiful story, and make it all the apparent red herrings and random plot twists work out for good, but I know he will. He’s that smart.
And I trust him.
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For Joseph and his brothers I don’t think that God “permits” or denies any behavior or action. Free will wouldn’t be free will if God pulled puppet strings. C.S. Lewis writes about our free will and gives a good explanation for why bad things happen to good people. If we even look closely at the miracles in the NT, none of them involved controlling or subversively manipulating people’s thoughts or decisions.
I agree that the stage is set by our birth and circumstances…but from that point on it is our own choices that determine our work with God. People often use their circumstances as excuse for turning away from God, but there are plenty in the same circumstance who lead extremely God-filled lives. I do believe that some circumstances make it harder than others, but we all have the free will to turn towards or against God.
Yes, I believe in free will,but also believe that God intervenes if we pray. That has happened throughout Scripture.
For instance, I work hard at my blog, let’s say. It plateaus. I continue working the same hours, but also pray. And suddenly, more followers, shares, links, readers. It moves to a slightly different level. Prayer brings an infusion of God’s grace and power into the dreary petri dish of our own abilities. Thank goodness!
I guess that’s just the geek in me. If God can intervene at any time, it brings about these inconsistencies: a) that our free will is not free all the time, one cannot have it both ways…it’s either free or not; b) that God then chooses not to intervene when something terrible, brutal, or evil is happening and the person it is happening to is an extraordinary person of faith is praying like the dickens; c) God chooses to intervene against the express wishes of the person involved. I believe that prayer gives us an infusion of the spirit which then influences our decisions, but doesn’t override them. Sure, God knocked Paul off his horse, but still left the decision up to Paul whether or not he followed him. Maybe God also knocked other people off their horses too who all said “no way”. We wouldn’t hear about those people because they wouldn’t have gotten airtime in the Scriptures. In order for our love of God to be meaningful, it must be freely given, not tricked or coerced out of us by direct interventions. Just my 2 cents…
Ok, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that we cannot have free will and have God writing our story for us at the same time. I do not believe that God would write our stories with sinful choices in them…we write those ourselves. I do, however, believe that God’s presence, if we are open to it, influences us and challenges us to make the right decisions, but our stories are ultimately ours to write. We have the free will to write God-filled stories…or, unfortunately, God-devoid stories. We can choose to see God’s influence in our lives and the influence of Him in other’s lives…and I do believe that He exists outside of our perception of time, so at once knows the end of the story yet can influence the outcome. He does touch our hearts and minds and if we surrender to Him, His influence will change our lives, but that pesky free will is always there and we don’t always let His spirit help shape our decisions.
I think of God and human interaction as us holding our own paintbrush, but as sometimes a teacher can place their hands over the students’ hand, helping to guide the paintbrush over the canvas, God’s will can help us paint our picture, if we let Him. Sometimes we stubbornly shake off the teacher’s hand thinking we can paint just fine all by ourselves, but the picture doesn’t come out looking so hot. God will let us paint all by ourselves if that’s what we want, but He is always there, offering His hand to be cupped over ours to help us guide our brush.
“we cannot have free will and have God writing our story for us at the same time.”
Yes, but we have external events, like race, IQ, beauty, physique, family, family income, talents like music or running, which God has given us. A huge amount of plot elements are given to us, so that it would be very difficult for a child from sub-Saharan Africa to write the same story with her life as a child from Beverley Hills, or Oxford, England, let’s say.
“I do not believe that God would write our stories with sinful choices in them…we write those ourselves.”
Yes, but I would say God permitted Joseph’s brothers to throw him in the well. What do you think?
I guess I was playing with Augustine’s idea that our lives are a story being written by God. I find so many plot elements are given, like a hand of cards, but it’s up to us to play them as well as we can.
I also like this verse, Acts 17:26 “and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.” So much is predetermined, as I said, (IQ, birth family income and education, innate gifts, race, wealth of birth nation, health at birth) but of course, within that circumference, our lives are what we make of them.