A New Way of Thinking About God’s Plan and How He Sees Our Lives
I came across this description from C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity a few years ago and it inspired me:
“If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel [thru life], then you must picture as the whole page on which the line is drawn. We come to the parts of the line one by one: we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. God, from above or outside or all around, contains the whole line, and sees it all.”
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Translation in case of confusion: Picture a line on a page. We see life as if we are on that line experiencing one moment at a time with no way to see parts of the line to come. God’s vantage point is from above the page; He sees the whole page and the whole line of our life all at the same time.
The Lewis paragraph is from a short section in Mere Christianity called “Time and Beyond Time”. You can see the whole section here: http://www2.esm.vt.edu/~sdross/text/beyondtime.html. Read it if you want more context on Lewis’ thinking – it’s short and plainly written so it won’t take much time.
I was particularly struck by this paragraph when I read it. Actually, I was very struck by it and as I thought about it I had a bit of an epiphany of sorts.
Some Big “A-Ha”s
It starts with what we all probably already know: God, as all knowing, sees all of our lives, across the span of time, all at once. Applying that to the Lewis analogy we realize that He can see the whole page and whole line for everyone.
Big a-ha #1: If He sees all of our lines then He must see how lines (lives) intersect and intermingle. For example, He must be able to see how two people’s lines come together when they find each other, become soul mates and eventually marry. When two people’s lines intersect that intersection represents how they affect each other. God, from His vantage point, can see that as it happens but He can also see it coming before it happens. God’s Plan for us.
Big a-ha #2: Taking that one step further, God must be able to see the impacts on our lives from coming in contact with others. Intersecting lines (connections with others) can result in life impacts that are significant, trivial and everywhere in between. And those impacts can be good and bad. We experience trivial line (life) connections every day at the coffee shop, grocery store and work environment. However, some connections dramatically change the course of our lives – like the intersection of the two people in the example above. Furthermore, our connections can impact the life of someone we love or know – or the life of that interacting person whether we know that person or not – or the life of someone else unbeknownst to us – or the life of someone yet to come – or even the lives of many people yet to come. This is kind of like “the butterfly effect” – a metaphor that hypothesizes how the gentle flap of a butterfly wing could potentially cause a tornado to occur elsewhere – but our connections and impacts have much more direct meaning in our lives.
I hope you’re with me so far. Some might be thinking, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know this. So what?” Bear with me. I’m getting to the really good part. First, a few more enhancements…
Adapting Lewis’ Analogy
Big a-ha #3: A more effective way to think about God’s Plan and His view of our lives is to extend Lewis’ two dimensional view of lines on a page into three dimensions. In other words, consider pulling the line off the page and floating it in space so that its twists, turns and bends can be seen from all angles. Once we move into 3 dimensional space (3D) we can now envision how God might see our lives with all their connections as lines in space coming from above, from below, from the side and all directions in between. Each of those lines twisting, turning, bending and intersecting with others – all coming together to represent everyone’s lives and interactions.
I’m guessing your brain is trying to imagine such a set of bendy lines intersecting from all over the place. If you’re like me, your brain is likely having difficulty doing that so extending Lewis’ analogy to 3D made everything worse. One thing I’ll say about that is “Holy cow, isn’t God awesome!?!?” It’s far beyond our feeble abilities to imagine in three dimensions all the twisting, turning, bending lines of all people all at once across all life spans. God is amazing, indeed.
To simplify things, I tend to focus on one person at a time. You. Me. A family member. A friend. A stranger. I also tend to focus on the more meaningful connections– those that significantly impact that person’s life – not the trivial, less meaningful connections. I think about the line representing the person’s life with its various ups, downs, twists, turns and bends and then add in lines representing the meaningful connections with others. Clear your brain of the mess created in the last paragraph and just consider, in 3D, the twist and turns and bends of one line plus a few intersecting lines. Think about your own life and the most significant connections you’ve had with others – your joys and trials, the good and possibly bad.
Big a-ha #4: I think another meaningful adaptation of Lewis’ model is to show how intersecting lines physically impact the line of the person we’re considering. For instance, the couple coming together above should be represented as some meaningful bends in the lines representing their lives. Right or wrong, I tend to think that positive impacts bend the lines up while negative impacts bend lines down. Other connections that introduce uncertainty or instability might be represented with a bend to the side. More uncertainty or instability might be represented with multiple bends left and right – like a zigzag. Connections that cause a great deal of volatility, insecurity or even crazy, tumultuous success might be represented with a spiral. Some connections completely change the course or bend of a line (life) while others are mere glancing blows. Some lines can start with a person (e.g., having a baby) while others, sadly, can end when they interact with a person (e.g., terrible auto accident). Think again about your own life and imagine how your line bends and twists as it connects with others.
Big a-ha #5: While it’s easiest and most tangible to think about how others impact our lives, we must keep in mind that we have an impact on others as well. Consider the impact that teachers have on children every day. Those connections can be meaningful to the teachers for sure but in many cases the connections can be significantly more impactful to a student’s life. Extending that concept further, it’s often the case that our connections with others create meaningful impacts both now and also over time. Consider the marriage of the soul mates above. That marriage can create children who further impact their parents’ lives. One of the children may then go on to develop some milestone improvement for the treatment of a disease thus creating more impacts in the family’s lives and in those who are treated for the disease. Those who are treated may then go on to create even more positive impacts on even more people. The impact of two soul mates bonding results in a child that ultimately, as part of God’s Plan for each person in the family, benefits humanity in a material way.
Big a-ha #6: Just like we can represent connections with others, we can also use this adapted Lewis analogy to represent events – those occurrences in our lives that aren’t necessarily caused by direct interaction with another person and some of which might be outside our control. Winning the lottery or, conversely, a terrible auto accident are dramatic examples of such events but even less significant events can reshape the lines representing our lives. In my mind, I can envision an intersection representing a new job and causing a person’s line to bend, zigzag or spiral up. On the other hand, losing a job can cause a line to bend, zigzag or spiral down. The length and magnitude of the bend reflects the length and magnitude of the impact.
The Really Big A-Ha: Representing God’s Plan
What really struck me when I read Lewis’ analogy was its simplicity and how that simplicity helped me comprehend, in my own meager way, God’s view of the world – if I can, in fact, comprehend His view at all. I know that I made things more complex by moving that analogy to three dimensions and adding the rest of the “a-ha”s but, in my mind, I can now more easily “see” the connections and associated impacts that people and events have on a life.
Now we get to the really big a-ha – at least for me: Imagining that God sees, all at once, how one life will play out, including its intersections, twists, turns and bends, I can begin to see God’s Plan for the person represented by that line. Said differently, I can begin to comprehend (maybe just barely) how God uses connections with people and interactions with events to shape our lives so that they fit His purpose. For example, using my imagination, I can envision how a tragic event that creates sorrow at the time is really part of God’s Plan and that that event may play out over time during the person’s life to create a positive and potentially more significant impact.
Consider Amber Hagerman who, at age 9, was abducted and murdered in Texas in 1996. The tragedy and sorrow that that event created for Amber’s family must have been horrific – far beyond my comprehension – but it set in motion creation of the Amber Alert system that’s now pervasive in the US and in many countries around the world. Sure, Amber’s abduction and murder wasn’t the first and likely won’t be the last but I can see God’s hand in the creation of the Amber Alert system and I can imagine how the lines representing those associated with Amber and the Amber Alert system might look – as part of God’s Plan for those people. More specifically, I can imagine lines for those in Amber’s family that suddenly spiral terribly downwards perhaps followed later by redemptive upward recovery with the adoption of the Amber Alert system.
That’s just one case of how I might attempt to comprehend God’s Plan for a person or set of people. And even then, it represents a very limited view within my very limited mind. My limited mind can imagine one or maybe a few such lines over some chunk of time with a limited set of interactions and associated impacts but, using this analogy, God sees all lines, all connections, all events, all impacts, all at once and uses all that to shape His master plan along with our role in that plan. It’s mind-boggling to even think about God in this way!
To be honest, I find comfort in this adaptation of Lewis’ analogy. Seeing connections and events impact a person’s life, I keep in mind that they’re part of God’s Plan for that person and I imagine a line and set of interactions that might help explain that plan. Also, as a hopeful and optimistic person, I tend to imagine that even tragic events create positive outcomes over time. In many cases, I understand that a positive outcome won’t happen for the person impacted. I get that. But I do have faith that God uses even tragic events for good over time. Back to Amber Hagerman, which I know is a limited example. I think about all of Amber’s sad predecessors, the pictures of kids on milk cartons, the others whose loss destroyed lives and families – so many lines with sudden terrible downward spirals most of which get no redemption. The sorrow of abducted and lost children goes back years, decades, and likely much much longer. Yet now the Amber Alert system helps address that problem and helps bring some degree of societal redemption. Sure, the system isn’t flawless, but again I can see the hand of God delivering a positive outcome according to His master plan and I find comfort in that.
Conclusions
Among all the a-ha’s the first big point here is that God has a plan for my life, your life and everyone’s life. This adaptation from Lewis’ analogy provides one way to comprehend and envision how God might see that plan – or at least a way for our feeble human minds to begin understanding God’s Plan for us. God’s Plan is likely impossible to fully comprehend but maybe this way of envisioning it can help us better see the big picture as God does and to see God’s hand in our lives.
The second big point here is: this analogy can help us understand how some twist, turn or connection in life may be due to our involvement in God’s Plan for someone else: our connection with someone may be an important event in God’s Plan for that person. The interaction may appear inconsequential to us but that interaction might be a very significant contributor to God’s Plan for the other person. For example, some pray to God when seeking a soul mate but instead find God responds in a different way than expected. It’s possible that the unexpected response is a significant part of God’s Plan for someone else. More specifically, the single person seeking a soul mate may find a person they perceive as their soul mate but instead lose him/her to someone else. One possible explanation is that the perceived soul mate must cleave to that someone else in order to serve a higher purpose in God’s Plan for those other two people. And that purpose is something that none of the three can begin to understand at the time and maybe not ever. While the loss of the perceived soul mate causes sorrow for the single person, God’s Plan for that person might call for finding a better soul mate at some later time. Or, even better, a new soul mate whose interaction may/will be part of God’s Plan for both people and their offspring to come. We can never fully comprehend God’s Plan for us nor His overall master plan – especially when we view life as one point on a line at a time. All we can do, when faced with the unexpected, is to try and find solace in thinking about God’s Plan for us and about how we might fit in His overall master plan. Considering Lewis’ analogy and adaptations helps me do that.
Read on… The next post should help you visualize God’s Plan
Visualizing God’s Plan Through Sculpture
God’s Plan and Revisiting Good Vs. Evil
Here’s a taste…
