I appreciate my life as meaningful (Part 1)

We all share a belief that we are presented with choices in what we do. This is true for small things—like how to respond to a person in a particular situation or what kind of attitude to bring into an encounter—as well as for larger things, like what profession to choose or whom to trust as a true partner and friend.

But even when it comes to these "choices," you and I likely agree that even those are not completely our choice. We might be caught in certain patterns of behavior that feel outside our control. Unless we are very privileged or extremely driven, it is not quite true that we can do anything with our professional lives. And that true-friend or true-partner thing . . . many of us have had our hearts broken or our expectations disappointed at some point.

So there are external circumstances that are outside our control—how we grow up, whether others encourage or disappoint us, if we're able to achieve something we strive for, or simply whether situations go our way or not. You might have a "lucky break" with that new job or friend or a "streak of bad luck" with an accident or a sickness or disease. 

The concepts of "good luck" vs. "bad luck" relate either to complete randomness in the world or to a kind of "destiny" that holds the cards in its sleeves, ready to pass them out—or not. Either way, we are subjected to a process or "something" that's out of our control and that has no interest in us. That "thing" might be interested in itself or the process but not in the individual participants of that process—us. So we are left to fend for ourselves. We can organize ourselves (as we do in the form of our family, groups of friends, interest groups, governments, or even large international organizations), but those entities only alleviate (or emphasize) some of the impacts of those lucky or unlucky breaks. Groups of friends can comfort in the case of loss or help us prepare and encourage us for life-changing events (like marriage or childbirth). Interest groups can help change policies, accomplish projects, and help where aid is needed that goes beyond the reach of smaller groups. Families are the core groups we belong to that equip us—or should equip us—with many of our skills, passions, and the most  fundamental of support systems (again, ideally).

But no matter how big any organization is, the response to anything that "destiny" throws at us is exactly that: a response to an event (like a family member's newly discovered disease or the response to a natural disaster) or an attempt to change course before an event happens (like preventing a divorce or mitigating climate change).

While Christians can be part of all these responses, we have access to a way of comprehending or compartmentalizing external events that others likely don't. We don't believe in random chance. Instead, we believe that God is integrally embedded in our lives and in everything we encounter, and is therefore a guiding force behind everything.

If you stop here and think about this statement—that there is no random chance, and everything is guided by God in some way—you might think this sounds ludicrous, on a number of levels. How could it possibly be feasible that God is in everything, especially when I disagree with someone else, or even worse, when bad things happen?

Also, if that were the case, does that mean I really don't have any role to play in what's happening to me? Do I not have any "free will" (a term that I have now already used a number of times and also a favorite term of Christians and theologians)?

This is one of the questions where you and I may come to an impasse. The impasse is composed of an incompatibility in the knowledge, understanding, and realm of experience of beings on completely different planes. One plane is inhabited by people who (in Christian understanding) are created; the other plane belongs to God, the one who created them, the creator. And though this may sound like a weak argument, there's really no other classification for this than a mystery. It has to seem mysterious to us—we whose very nature constantly strives to understand more, we who have already succeeded in understanding so much: There are some things that in their essence we are not made to understand because they are literally beyond us.

In our earlier discussion on gravity, I mentioned that we are dealing with faith and not empirical science. Empirical science has no place for mysteries. It knows only yet-unexplained phenomena. Whenever scientists come to points where they can't explain any further, it is because no one has found a way to make logical sense of those phenomena. Unlike people dealing with questions of faith, however, they are in the enviable position of having a long track record of development in their respective branch of science that will possibly—even likely—find answers. Why? Because the phenomena they are trying to explain are of this world and have no will of their own.

Christian thinkers are in a completely different position. They are trying to make sense of something that is not of this world and is completely self-determined. How, for instance, could God possibly be truly omnipresent (everywhere at the same time)? Or how could he have equipped us with a mind and a reason and a will and yet still seem to be in control?

Clearly, any answer to these contradictory questions, or any framework that would solve those contradictions, has to eventually fail. And Christians have to admit that there are built-in contradictions within our realm of experience that form the basis of these questions. Those are the "mysteries."  

This does not mean that Christians don't think, write, and sometimes argue about them, even to a point where churches have split over this. In the midst of the uncertainty and disagreement, is there anything that a large majority of Christians would agree on when it comes to this vexing question of God's interference or guidance?

All Christians believe that overall God is in control. Equally, all Christians believe that people have the ability to respond to any circumstance with which we are confronted. There are disagreements about whether that response only seems like a free choice but in reality was determined by God long before. There are also disagreements on why calamities happen, such as natural disasters or painful events like disease and premature death. But there is agreement on the fact that there is evil and death, that each of us is confronted with all kinds of choices, that we will experience hardship, and, again, that overall God is in control.