The world is so connected that every action we take has implications that cannot be imagined. As a result, we cannot predict outcomes with any surety. What seems practical might fail and what seems irrational might work.
God works tirelessly bringing what is best to the world. No human can ever see the intricacies of that plan. God’s will accounts for all the free will of devils, angels, and men from the past, present, and future. God’s will cares for the sparrows and the polar bears. The arc of history bends toward justice and peace, but that sweep of what is best takes time to develop.
We cannot often see the hand of God in history or even in our lives. We can hear His still, small voice in our hearts assuring us that all is for the best. We know that our prayers are heard and that as a good Father, whenever God can do so without endangering the best, He gives us good gifts. We see answers to our prayers, healings and good gifts, when the regular course of nature would not bring such jollification.
Nobody is a discrete unit cut off from history or from the future. Nobody is a story in and of himself. All of us are part of everyone else’s story and so the outcome of every life is of interest to all. We cannot know the details of another life, not even one we think we know well because God allows a deep, soul level, liberty and autonomy from any eye but His own.
God acts justly to every man by the time history ends, but this is impossible for me to see. God will not justify Himself to me by revealing any heart. He is no cad and loves us truly.
Like the very ecosystem, all things impact all things. We cannot be sure of the outcomes of our action or how even a simple word will be heard. Today I introduced two young people to each other. What will come of that friendship? I cannot know, cannot be sure. I am only sure that the introduction itself was proper.
In the doubt we must feel toward the details of the future in a universe with free will, natural laws, angels, devils, all interacting in the Will of God, we can be sure of the “end.” God will win. Justice will triumph. Good will purge the last of evil and all that is crooked will be made straight. Yet the particular incidents of our life are hard to see as part of that plan.
What to do?
We must do our duty and do what is right. Evil men take the good and twist it to bad purposes, but their evil is not our fault. We might be called to the hard work of reconciling the newly broken good to Christ, to forgiving, and to healing.
Paul said:
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.
Instead of thinking on the true, honest, just, pure, lovely, good, and virtuous, many of us misunderstand these verses. We try to weed out the false, dishonest, unjust, impure, ugly, evil, and vice-ridden.
This is a mistake as the pattern of our lives.
Of course we should refrain from vice, but not as the goal of our lives. Instead, we must attend (by God’ grace) to virtue. We are planting seeds, not weeding. Our disposition is toward loving the good, not simply a hatred of evil.
In an interconnecting universe, this difference matters. Christians are called a people who are fundamentally creative, loving, and actively holy. We are called to bear fruit not to be fruit inspectors.
We are happy to refrain from evil, because our lives are joyfully filled with the good. When I realize this I am filled with wonder . . . wondering what would happen if millions of us embraced no evil, because we were consumed with embracing purity. The world is so interconnected that lifting up the Good, True, and Beautiful would draw all men to us.
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