From the Mind of Meegs

I just finished reading Walking With God by John Eldredge. Now, I like John a whole, whole lot. Some of his earlier books were spot-on excellent. However, if I had to distill all the shi...*ahem*...stuff that's been bothering me about Christianity these days (well, more so than usual), I think I can do no better than to give people this book. Let me attempt to explain.

I don't have the spiritual gift of guessing. I've decided the quest for "God's will" often comes down to this, so it's too bad I'm lacking. Should I take Path A or Path B? We add up all the half-baked hints and half-realized circumstances and half-useful advice we get, and then we guess. We guess what this all means. We guess what God wants us to do. Absent a direct, irrefutable word from the Lord (in other words, show me the stone tablets), we guess. But we use words like "sense" and "lead" because they sound more spiritual than "guess."  And some people must have the spiritual gift of guessing, because they're always sure what to do and it always seems to turn out well for them, or so they'd have us believe. But I'm increasingly pursuaded to the conclusion that the vast majority of this probably doesn't matter all that much.

A question for the parents. Do you honestly give a rat's ass what your child does for a living? Do you honestly give a rat's ass who your kid marries? Do you honestly give a rat's ass about any of these sorts of issues? OK, now get all huffy for a while and exclaim about how of course you do because what kind of parent would you be if you didn't care about your child's future. Rant for a while and come back. I'll still be here.

Now, I'm going to ask again. Do you honestly give a rat's ass what your child does for a living? Oh, sure. You hope your child will find something fulfilling, something that allows him or her to provide for a family, should circumstances require that, and something that adds to the good in the world (e.g., no drug-dealing or whoring around). Does it matter to you what exactly they choose? And I'll bet you hope little Johnny finds a wife who he loves and respects, who loves and respects him back, and to whom he can be mutually committed. And beyond that, do you care?

There are some parents who do care. There are some parents who don't care that Johnny is fulfilled and happy and providing for his family as a construction foreman. They just like to tell him how much better things could be if he was a lawyer like his father. And they don't care how happy Johnny is with Sally. At the first sign of martial problems, no matter how minor or routine, they tell Johnny that they wish he would have proposed to Susie instead of breaking up with her. However, we have a name for these sorts of people. They are called bad parents.

So just be honest. You don't really care. I know it sounds bad, but it's true and it's actually better this way. So I have no idea why we ascribe to God a higher level of micromanagement than we ascribe to our parents.

Of course, this doesn't take away from the fact that you have a lovely relationship with your children. You talk all the time about the trials of life, and the triumphs, and the things that make you happy and the things that make you sad. You have the principles that I've alluded to (be fulfilled at some sort of meaningful level, love well, do good), though you recognize there are many ways to reach those ideals. You share these together. You can, wonder of wonders, have a relationship with your child without mapping out his or her every move.

This is the other bee in my bonnet. One of the other key words for people who like to guess (besides "lead" and "sense") is "relationship" or "intimacy." Translation: sacred guessing is all about having a relationship with God, and if you don't want to be a holy guesser, you must see God as a far-off person who is too busy with more important things to concern himself with your pathetic little life. Pity you and your joyless life of rule following and deity appeasing.

I wish these people would spare me their pity. God and I are doing just fine, thanks very much (OK, maybe we're not always doing fine, but that's for reasons other than this). I don't equate task-mastering with a relationship. I can have "conversational intimacy" with God and still believe that, in the end, he's not overly concerned with these various details. I have "conversational intimacy" with my friends, and I don't think they care too much about what I do, nor do I care about what they do. I have "conversational intimacy" with my parents, and I know they don't care all that much about these details. Is it not at all possible that God uses the better relationships in our life to teach us something about himself? Does it stand to reason that almost all our functional human relationships would work one way, but our relationship with God would work the exact opposite way? My hunch is no.

I used to think I didn't have The Voice. No one and no thing came around to whisper in my ear and tell me what to do. But since I stopped listening for that, I've discovered I do have the voice. The voice tells me about the meaningful things in life. It tells me about hardship and heartache and loss and joy and victory. Sometimes it tells me these things through other people, or through books, or through song, or through nature, or sometimes just in my heart of hearts--when I'm alone in my bed at night and, in the words of Buechner, almost believe that I could reach out and take his hand except that the thin glove of night keeps me from touching it.

It's like that tired old cliche about the forest and the trees. The Voice is all about looking for the trees. No wonder we miss the forest. But when we've been freed up to stop worrying about the trees, we can finally see the forest.

It's not that God is too busy to care about the little details. It's not that he has no plan for the details because he's impotent. I think it's that he can think of no better plan than freedom. I think it's that he can think of nothing more he'd like to do than save us from guessing and the resultant false guilt so we can focus on what really matters. And yes, he still cares about the hairs on our head and still arranges our days. I just think he can express that care and accomplish that arrangement without resorting to a guess-based spirituality. I mean, he is God--right?