Things happen everyday, big or small. Do you think they randomly happen, or God is telling us something?
Do you believe in our daily life, nothing happens by chance?
- Thread starter Churchgoer
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
I think God can speak to us and teach us something in the midst of every circumstance. But if things don't happen by chance, then there must be either a causal pathway behind them (like how people who eat vast amounts of sugar tend to end up diabetic) or a will and intention actively behind them. In light of all the horrible stuff that happens (the slaughter of our brothers and sisters in parts of Nigeria, the rape gangs in the uk, cancer taking kids or young moms) it can be anything but comforting to think that God has a direct hand in causing that to happen.
So I think I end up with the view that God is sovreign like the government rather than like the author of a book or play. He doesn't script every incident in our lives, but he has defined the way we should live and has the power to enforce his will when he decides to intervene.
So I think I end up with the view that God is sovreign like the government rather than like the author of a book or play. He doesn't script every incident in our lives, but he has defined the way we should live and has the power to enforce his will when he decides to intervene.
Great question!!!
If God knows the number of hairs on my head (and how many just fell to the floor as I was combing it this morning!), clothes the lilies of the field in more splendor than Solomon, and calls out all the the stars by name...
I'm pretty sure that nothing is random or by coincidence -- but that's just me.
Nothing happens without God's knowledge or consent.
Why He allows some things to happen, we don't know... But I guess that's part of faith.
As His children, we believe that His decisions are sovereign, even when we don't understand them.
Great thread @Churchgoer!
There is a principle of sowing and reaping. God can and does intervene. However, God has principles that he abides by. For example, where I live, affordable accommodation is hard to come by. A friend of ours has to move as the house is being sold. She could have gone into panic mode, but she asked God to help. She talked to the agent who manages the property she has to leave. They knew of a vacancy coming up and she will be moving there in about 3 weeks. "Ask and you shall receive". Normally, a dozen or so people would have applied. I know because I went looking myself one time. God had other plans for me, I'm glad to say.
We need to do our part, and that is to seek. So she did not sit around moping. She positively looked for a place to live. God supplied.
Proverbs 3:5-6.
I thought the idea was to surrender to God's leading.
Romans 8:28..
Even when we don't, God sets it right.
Psalm 23
It is the nature of the Shepherd to lead and to provide.
I thought the idea was to surrender to God's leading.
Romans 8:28..
Even when we don't, God sets it right.
Psalm 23
It is the nature of the Shepherd to lead and to provide.
According to Jesus, 2 sparrows will not fall on ground without God permission.
Maybe 1 to 0?
Honestly, it doesn't really matter to me. If I had a signed statement from God that he was completely hands-off, or if he told me personally that he was micromanaging every single detail, it wouldn't make a pennyworth of difference in what I do every day. I would still act the same way I always act.
Hello Churchgoer, if there are even a few things that happen "randomly" in this world, or elsewhere (IOW, things that are beyond God's purview and ordination), how much faith/trust can we really have in the wondrous promises that He's made to us (or in anything else that He's said for that matter), because (if you think about it) just a few, random occurrences, things that He has no prior knowledge of and/or control over, could literally change everything that He plans to do or allows to happen, etc.
Isaiah 46
9 “I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,
10 Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’"
This is not to say that He is a Cosmic Puppet Master (IOW, Someone who literally determines everything that we choose to do in this life), but it does mean that He both knows about and ordains whatsoever comes to pass in this world, long before any of it actually happens (by ordain I mean that He either 1. causes something to happen or 2. stops something from happening or 3. allows something to happen, such as sin, even though He doesn't want us to sin, because we wouldn't have free will in any sense if He consistently forced us to comply with His will).
I think that it's also important to remember that He thinks and sees things differently than we do, because (among other things) He is able to see our lives from a different POV than we can (which means that He truly knows what's best for us, both for our lives in the here and now, but especially in regard to our future lives with Him, in the eternity to come). So, even though some things may seem "bad" to us (in the moment that they happen), we know that we will eventually understand why He allowed us to go through them (and why what may have seemed "bad" to us in the moment will eventually be understood to be something that is "good" for us instead .. e.g. Romans 8:28 cf Philippians 1:6, Hebrews 12:7-11)
God bless you!!
~Deuteronomy
Isaiah 55
8 “My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.
9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Romans 8
28 We know that God causes ~all things to work together for good~ to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
.
Man plans his way,but God sets his steps.
Our choices fall so to meet God's plans for us.
Personal experience.
I fasted for three days. No media. No TV, no cell phone. Just mineral water or spring water.
Clarity sets in when I don't have those worldly distractions interfering in ,competing with, God's leading and messages for me.
But,when I'm in the temple, meditating,not distracted,I could,can, see how everything that occurs is related.
It's like that old adage, life is a classroom. Lessons to be learned present themselves. We repeat until we learn from the lesson and move on to the next.
For me, realizing everything is of God makes the journey make sense.
Humans have the issue of identity crisis.
"God is male", "Jesus is a man in Heaven", etc...
Pronouns are distractions and cause division.
No. God tells us, God is not a man. God is a Spirit. Holy Spirit.
Everything is of and from God. As God says.
Which also makes navigating this classroom easier to understand.
Hebrews 11
By faith we understand that the worlds[a] were set in order at God’s command, so that the visible has its origin in the invisible.[c]
Footnotes
Hebrews 11:3 tn Grk “ages.” The temporal (ages) came to be used of the spatial (what exists in those time periods). See Heb 1:2 for same usage.
Hebrews 11:3 tn Grk “by God’s word.”
Hebrews 11:3 sn The Greek phrasing emphasizes this point by negating the opposite: “so that what is seen did not come into being from things that are visible.”
God is 3 person in one though. Not just energy.
Jesus is person, God.
What's wrong with chance?
I think it depends on if you like to gamble or not. Some people are into taking risks and believe in luck. Some don't.
Because God breathes life into every being and created us, we are not here by chance, but we can make our own chance/luck by the choices we make. Some don't take advantage of the opportunity or priveliges they have and that can be to there own or even their children's detriment.
I think if you are guided by God and ask Him for help, things go better for you, even if you have trials and tribulations on earth, they are meant to strengthen your faith. Sometimes your faith will come under fire, that is the reality of living in a fallen world. But we can choose to get up, or ask to be lifted up. Or both.
David was in despair when he wrote psalms, but he encouraged himself, because he learned to rely on God.
In Proverbs, its said drawing lots ends arguments. When we toss a coin, it's agreed that whoever calls heads or tails wins whatever it lands on. A lot of sports rely on luck but you can improve your chances by training and having strategy. Sometimes geography can be in our favour, or it can be a challenge. Playing fields are not always level.
Also in history, I learned that in the US, there were land lots or land grabs, whoever got there first and had a stake in the ground, won that piece of land. So it didn't matter if you had a lot of money or not...only if you got there first. It was a lottery otherwise. Or ballot.
I think it depends on if you like to gamble or not. Some people are into taking risks and believe in luck. Some don't.
Because God breathes life into every being and created us, we are not here by chance, but we can make our own chance/luck by the choices we make. Some don't take advantage of the opportunity or priveliges they have and that can be to there own or even their children's detriment.
I think if you are guided by God and ask Him for help, things go better for you, even if you have trials and tribulations on earth, they are meant to strengthen your faith. Sometimes your faith will come under fire, that is the reality of living in a fallen world. But we can choose to get up, or ask to be lifted up. Or both.
David was in despair when he wrote psalms, but he encouraged himself, because he learned to rely on God.
In Proverbs, its said drawing lots ends arguments. When we toss a coin, it's agreed that whoever calls heads or tails wins whatever it lands on. A lot of sports rely on luck but you can improve your chances by training and having strategy. Sometimes geography can be in our favour, or it can be a challenge. Playing fields are not always level.
Also in history, I learned that in the US, there were land lots or land grabs, whoever got there first and had a stake in the ground, won that piece of land. So it didn't matter if you had a lot of money or not...only if you got there first. It was a lottery otherwise. Or ballot.