Coincidences and Providences

I love the LORD, because he has heard
    my voice and my supplications. 
Because he inclined his ear to me,
    therefore I will call on him as long as I live.   (from Ps. 116)

In his book, Humble Leadership, Graham Standish reports something a former archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, is supposed to have said.  "I find that when I pray coincidences happen. When I cease to pray, coincidences stop happening."  Temple is, of course, speaking of providences rather than coincidences.  When through prayer he is more attuned and aligned with God, he sees and experiences God at work in his life and in the world around him.

Now I don't mean that every good turn of events can or should be attributed to God. (I have a memory seared into my brain of a boxer thanking God for his victory, saying how he felt Jesus empowering his fists as he pummeled his opponent into submission.)  But without some meaningful connection to and experience of God and God's providence, faith is nothing more than a philosophy or ideology.

The psalmist loves YHWH because God has heard him, has responded to him in some way.  I think this is often a weak point in Mainline Christianity.  We're big on knowledge, but not so much on experience.  In fact, we're suspicious of it.  I was once at a retreat that featured Brian McLaren.  He made an offhand comment about being able to learn something from Pentecostals, and most of the pastors over 50 practically came out of their seats to challenge him.

We certainly need to "test the spirits" to see which are from God, and a solid, biblically based knowledge of God and God's ways can help us to do this.  But if we cannot encounter God at work in our lives and in the world, along with being able to identify that work as providence, then we might as well be Deists.  I'm not knocking Deists, but we Presbyterians insist we don't believe in a great, cosmic clock-maker who is now removed from Creation. We say God IS at work in history, so surely  with the help of the Spirit, we should be able to say, "See, there is God's providence."

Of course if we became perceptive enough to sense God at work on a regular basis, it stands to reason that we would also become more sensitive to God's call in our lives.  We would also hear God's command.  And maybe that's a pretty good reason to keep God at arm's length.

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