Life: The Movie
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6 NASB
Trust – Movies have plots. They are usually accompanied by subtle forewarning clues. There are no extraneous persons in the story. That incidental character who just happens to show up in one scene turns out to be the true lover—or antagonist. If you’ve seen enough movies, you can usually predict the outcome after a few minutes of screen time. In a sense, the end is always already known. Good guys win. Couples fall in love. Efforts succeed. Victory belongs to the hero or heroine.
Unfortunately, the movies aren’t real! Life isn’t a movie with a predestined unfolding. A movie is the work of a screenwriter who knows how it’s supposed to end. Life is in the hands of God—and we don’t really have a clue about how our lives will end. We’re actors who are given their lines in the middle of shooting the scene. Impromptu is how it usually works. You never know what will happen next. But if you’re of a certain religious persuasion, you might believe that God knows what will happen next and, as director, He’s just orchestrating the whole thing despite the fact that we can’t see the end from the beginning. At least that’s what some orthodox beliefs seem to suggest (Jewish or Christian, it really doesn’t matter). If God knows everything, then why worry about your particular lines? They’re all part of the big plan. Rabbi Shalom Arush portrays this inevitably in his Jewish paradigm.
“ . . . everything that happens to us in life is the product of Hashem’s will and personal intervention in our lives . . .”[1]
“ . . . the root of all human suffering is none other than a lack of enuma, the pure and unshakable faith in The Almighty.”[2]
“Enuma is the original biblical Hebrew term for a firm belief in a single supreme, omniscient, benevolent, spiritual, supernatural, and all-powerful Creator of the universe, which we refer to as God (or Hashem, which literally means ‘the name’, so that we don’t risk using God’s name in vain).”[3]
“Without Torah, the world is a heartless, unbearable hothouse of strife, hatred, competition, slander, theft, revenge, cruelty, adultery, and injustice.”[4]
“Without believing that Hashem does everything for the best, a person can’t possibly reach a truthful conclusion.”[5]
Perhaps it’s comforting to accept this idea of a fixed plot in life. After all, if it’s true, then all we really have to do is submit to it. God takes care of all the details. Human “responsibility” is simply a matter of resignation.
Unfortunately (for me), I don’t see it this way. First, I don’t believe that everything is already foreknown. Secondly, I don’t think the Bible portrays us as mere actors. We are also creators and as such we change things. Finally, I think obedience is not a matter of resignation but rather one of choice, and not obeying has eternal consequences. Of course, this isn’t very comforting. It leaves me in the position where my actions or inactions matter—a lot. I don’t have any “divine foreknowledge” excuses. Things don’t always work out the way God wants. Of course, that doesn’t mean God can’t work with what does happen. It only means He didn’t plan it that way. It’s really up to me—and that isn’t very comforting.
Still, you have a choice. You can decide Arush is right and settle in to your lot in life. Or you can struggle like I do and wish you didn’t. It’s confusing, isn’t it?
Topical Index: freedom, choice, inevitability, omniscience, emuna, Proverbs 3:5-6
[1]Rabbi Shalom Arush, The Garden of Emuna: A practical guide to life (trans. Rabbi Lazer Brody, Third Edition, Chut Shel Chessed Institutions, Israel, 2008), p. 23.
[2] Ibid. p. 16.
[3] Ibid., p. 22.
[4] Ibid., p. 49.
[5] Ibid., p. 84.
Thanks! Excellent. This certainly is something “the church” needs to hear! God help us!
Humanity has never really wanted to deal with God. (Man’s first proclivity was to build a golden calf and later it was to try and build a tower to heaven). We want someone else to and then we will follow them. Sort of like a buffer, that doesn’t really exist. Reminds me the Israelites in their conversation with Moses. Give us the rules and we will try to live by them, but you can handle the fallout of our actions or in actions. Don’t make us personally responsible, can’t you see that we can’t help ourselves?!? Oh woe!
Whatever happened to presenting our bodies a living sacrifice?? The incineration of the ego! Wanting to experience the resurrection without having to go through the agony of death. That’s why Hallmark movies are so popular.
Once again, God help us!
You have said in the past that it is this sort of TW that elicits the most responses. I think it is because the ideas expressed resonate so clearly and deeply with we lonely people of faith. I am sure you have heard this sentiment many, many times before but when someone like myself is reminded through your work that I am joined by so many others on this particular journey, it really uplifts me. Thanks again Skip. Yes and amen.
This insight regarding historical processes that affect common thinking and perceptions is helpful in recognizing how we have developed our own context of thought common to this present time… particularly as it stands up and against biblical perceptions.
There is no static reality for mankind in the literature of Scripture itself; nor in the literature that reflected and affected the thinking of the human agents who authored the literature that comprise the Scriptures—(which were “breathed” by God).
Nevertheless there is a constancy of that conveyed therein, and an overarching narrative that speaks of God’s reality, being, nature, acts, and love, which leads to God’s personal intervention brought about by sin… the personal transgression of the perfect and benevolent will of God for the whole of creation.
”So also we, when we were children, we were enslaved under the elemental spirits (“order”; stoicheia) of the world.
But when the fullness of time came, God sent out his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order that he might redeem those under the law, in order that we might receive the adoption.
And because you are sons, God sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, ‘Abba! (Father!),’ so that you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, also an heir through God.” (Galatians 4:3-7)