Are we living by chance in God’s kingdom?
Recently, I was reminded of the flower petal game–a game of chance to help you “decide” if the object of your affection will return those feelings. It involves a small flower with petals that you’d pluck one at a time reciting he loves me, then another petal he loves me not. And on and on until you’re left with one petal (or not) and the hope was you’d end on ‘he loves me,’ which of course would make you happy for the moment anyway.
Thinking about this game of chance started me thinking about another culturally popular phrase or ideology –random. Maybe you’ve heard a popular phrase these days: “that was random” or “this is so random”. What they mean is, the process or event lacks a predictable order, where outcomes appear haphazard or unpredictable. A truly random sequence would have no discernible pattern or tendency, even over many trials. The idea of chance is a broader concept, encompassing any event with uncertain outcomes, while randomness is a more specific characteristic describing events that are inherently unpredictable and without a discernible pattern.
Maybe you’ve thought about or allowed these concepts to overshadow God’s design for your life. Possibly you were raised with a random moral or religious grounding, or you’ve chosen to live your life by chance or random philosophical ideals. I know that experience very well. Before becoming a Christ-follower, I lived this way. Absent of a solid understanding of God’s design of my identity in Him and His plan for my life. I was adrift like a ship that’s lost at sea, tossed back and forth with my own concept of faith, ethics, and morality. It was a time of anxiousness, bondage to wrong thoughts, and unhealthy choices. I was hostile toward God’s plan because I wanted to be the master of my own destiny. The more I tried to control the rudder of my life the worse it got. Many in our world right now are fighting this battle to know that life is more than randomness or chance. Many Christ-followers who are in God’s Kingdom still struggle with believing that God has a specific plan for each and every detail of their lives.
I’m thankful that I now live rooted and securely planted in a kingdom that is founded on God’s identity in us and the revelation of His will. God’s kingdom was designed and rests on the surety that God is the Creator. He has completely designed the plan of how our world came into existence; the physical world we live in being mapped out in detail. We don’t have to live with a mentality of guessing or crossing our fingers that our lives will turn out. The accounts in the first two chapters of Genesis describe the account of creation. This illustrates without a doubt how God, from the beginning, designed a plan, a specific order of existence for us to build upon as we walk with Him.
This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the LORD God made the earth and the heavens. Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:4-9, NIV).
And in the New Testament, particularly the writings of the Apostle John further elaborate on creation, and God’s intention for us to be connected to Him as our source of life.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:1-5).
We become firmly rooted in God and immovable to the worldly philosophies of chance and randomness by choosing each day who we will serve. We must allow the Holy Spirit to work in us a transformation of wrong thinking, wrong beliefs & wrong ideology. This sets our foundation in Christ squarely, so we then continue to build our faith from the ground up. The building of our faith becomes the fortress that can withstand the devil’s attacks and sustains us through life’s ups and downs. As we take time each day to seek God in His Word, we learn principles of truth that form our spiritual backbone to make a stand for God. The relationships we have at home and in our communities help to sharpen those principles and give us places to learn from others but also share what we’ve learned. And finally, provide the opportunity to actively use our faith by speaking about God, sharing with others who are adrift and in need of a Savior.
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