If You Don’t Know, You Don’t Know.

I suppose everyone reading this has heard the term, “God thing,” at some point. “There’s no way to explain how he survived that accident. It’s a God thing.” “Everything was so stacked against me getting this job. It has to be a God thing.” “She was so set against the church. I was certain she would never become a Christian. That was a God thing.” Saying the phrase makes my mouth uncomfortable. I prefer “God’s providence.” Maybe I was born too many years ago.

There are several examples of God’s providence at work in the Old and New Testaments. One of the best in the OT is the story of Joseph being sold to slave traders by his brothers only to become Pharaoh’s right hand man in Egypt in time to store food, which his brothers came to him to obtain. Joseph says in Gen 50:20, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive.”

An interesting example from the NT is the story of Peter being released from prison in Acts 12:6-17. The disciples were gathered in a house praying for Peter to be released and while they were praying an angel released Peter. He came to the house and knocked on the door. But the disciples who were praying for him seemed not to believe that he was free.

Both of these stories, and many others, categorically tell or explicitly state the work of God behind the scenes to bring about His desired result. That is the definition of providence and it’s what is meant by a “God thing.” But there is a significant item of note included in these occurrences. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God planned and implemented His plan to raise Joseph to power in Egypt and to set Peter free from Herod’s prison. We know that because the Biblical narrative expressly tells us so. One of the most misapplied verses in the Bible is Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you, saith Jehovah, plans for prosperity, and not for evil.” I’m confident the reader is familiar with this verse. It is usually used in the context of an exhortation to positive enthusiasm. It is applied to almost every situation in life that could have a negative or a positive turn, and it is used to assure Christians that God has a positive turn planned for them.

Are you wearing yourself out in a nowhere job while trying unsuccessfully to move to a higher level? God has plans for you to prosper. Have you been struggling for years in a fight against a debilitating disease. Be assured, God has plans for your welfare. Have you been trying to have children for years without success? God has plans for your success. On it goes and you can make dozens of scenarios. Whatever the case, we are told God has a plan for you to achieve your goal. Jeremiah 29:11 does not make that promise to us.

Read in context, Jeremiah 29:11 is a small part of a letter that God is sending to Israelites who are in Babylonian captivity 600 years before the time of Christ. You can read the letter and gather the context by reading all of Jeremiah 29. God is telling these captive Israelites to work hard, live well, be good citizens in Babylon and be of good cheer because it is God’s plan to bring them back to Jerusalem. He says to them, “I know the plans I have for you.” The plan He has for them is to return to and restore Jerusalem. It’s a plan for good and not for evil. But the statement he makes to them has nothing to do with you or me. God made a specific promise specifically to captive Israelites, about their specific situation. He didn’t make that promise to you or me.

The problem here is talking about something without knowing anything about it. The same thing is done in regard to God’s providence on a regular basis. People talk about it as if they know about it when they don’t. I’m reminded of Isaiah 55:8-9, as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are God’s ways and thoughts above our ways and thoughts. There is so much about God we don’t understand, so much about his ways that we can’t imagine; it’s impossible to say in a meaningful way.

Yet we think we know what God is doing behind the scenes. We know he survived that accident because God worked to make it so. We know you got that job because God worked somehow to make it happen. We know she became a Christian because God was pulling strings behind the scenes to make it happen. Here is a hard truth: we don’t know anything about what God is doing. “I just feel it had to be God.” Feeling is a far cry from knowing. God can do far beyond our ability to imagine (Eph. 3:20.) Why should we think we know everything about His work behind the scenes.

None of what I am saying is to be interpreted as doubting God’s ability, or that God may be working mightily. What I am saying is, “We don’t know what God is doing. We don’t know what God is not doing.” We shouldn’t behave as though we do. Job merely questioned God and was berated severely and put in his place for it throughout four chapters (Job 38-41.)

I believe as Christians we are called upon to think more deeply than the average person. I believe that is what is meant by “sober” in 1 Peter 5:8. Think deeply about things. I want to leave you with an observation of how we talk as though we know what is going on behind the scenes, what God is doing, and what He is not doing, and how that can be harmful no matter how innocently we proceed. We need to be sober.

Family A and Family B were both members of the same congregation. Both families consisted of mother, father, and children. Both fathers became afflicted with a serious illness at approximately the same time. Prayers were offered for both. Father A regained his health, but father B died from his illness. Prayers of praise and thanksgiving were offered to God for the recovery of father A, and for God’s work in sparing him from his disease.

Assume you are the children, or even the mother of family B. God has been petitioned for your beloved father/husband, just as with family A. However, father/husband A is restored and God is thanked for doing it. What are the implications then, regarding your father/husband? We must realize there is a world of hurt here. “God has rejected our family member and restored the other. This is so unfair. Why was father A spared from death, and thus the family from heartache, but our family was disregarded.” Why did this happen? Is this part of God’s plan for this family? We don’t know. We would be presumptuous to act as if we did know.

We actually never knew, from start to finish, what God might be doing or not doing. There is no doubt that God could do whatever He desired to do in this situation. That is not being discussed. What is being discussed is what God did do. The answer is that we don’t know. Maybe God did absolutely nothing to help father A. You feel that He did. The family feels that He did. That doesn’t make it so. But it does make family B feel like they have been disregarded and disrespected. They shouldn’t feel that way, but that doesn’t change anything.

I fear that confidently boasting that God has a plan for you for X, Y, and Z to happen in your life, can weaken the faith of hurting people when X, Y, and Z don’t happen. It can cause other problems as well, and it is all unnecessary. I am certain we need to admit that we don’t know much at all about what God is doing behind the scenes, in the way of answering prayer, or in anything else. Believe in God and the power of prayer. I do. But never forget that we are not on His level and “when you don’t know. You don’t know.”