Hello, CAF-ites,
Is there a thin line between seeing the working of “Providence” in the world around us, and then acknowleging things that just randomly happen or are generated by the Free Will of Man? I suppose one could say that God sometimes works as an “overseer” of events, which he permits to occur, like natural disasters which are “happenstance” and criminal actions that are “Free Will”. What are some of your thoughts on this issue? Also, have you had any events in your life which you belief clearly revealed the hand of Providence at work?
Blessings,
Pearl of Tyburn
I sometimes wonder (theoretically of course) if we are all like Job, having free will but put into different situations to test our character.
I have also wondered about how God uses all mankind and all our surroundings to bring us all back to Him eventually. “All things work together for those who Love God.”
I posted somewhere else about the book “Robinson Crusoe.” He uses the word “Providence” alot. If you are asking these questions, it is a must read. Really a fascinating and very Christian story, probably why no one ever reads it anymore.
Someone Japanese, a young boy, born 17 - 18 years before 1944, becomes a kamikaze while some other kid 17 - 18 years old is born in Kansas the same day and ends up on a Naval vessel somewhere out in the Pacific. “With God all things are possible.” How is it God knows the hearts of these two men who die together on that ship? They didn’t choose that life, it was chosen.
Here is what I really believe about these things. God exists in the past, present and future. Since He already is “I AM” then He has already experienced our future. We are in His past. We are already dead. There are people who are our descendants who are already dead and their descendants too. All these things have already happened because God has already experienced them. We haven’t. So, we are all in a passion play which must lead to the timeline that God has already experienced.
My wife said when she was younger she was driving home in a terrible storm with her high school friends. There was a car behind them who was honking at them for driving too slow. The car behind them decided to speed around them in a two lane road. As the car behind passed them, the person driving the car my wife was in slammed on the brakes. Just then, a huge tree fell on the car in front of them. I had already married my wife and we had already had children in God’s timeline therefore Providence stepped in. Had they gone at the exact rate of speed they would have been crushed. Providence or miracles simply keep God’s already happened timeline in neat order.
