7 Takes About How God Is Leading You

Oh well, that doesn’t sound hard at all.

As I labored through the week I wasted a little bit of time googling things like “Women’s Bible Studies” and “Glennon Doyle” and “Rachel Hollis Divorce” and ridiculous stuff like that. And, well, the result of my investigations is that I have some thoughts.

One

Googling is stupid. Instead of doing that I could have read a whole ‘nother book or written one myself.

Two

If you want to talk to big crowds of women it seems like you have to be blond and wear impossibly tall heels.* This seems to be true even if you are Opera and are elevating someone else’s thoughts and feelings about how the universe will guide you if you just “surrender.” In all my googling I began to wish I had paid attention in statistics and could work out a study about the hair color of female spiritual influencers. I know there are some red-heads out there, and one or two brunettes, although with a competent hairdresser I suppose anyone can have any great hair color…maybe someone has already done this study? Would it be possible to be a person women listen to if you had a bad hair cut? Or had gone gray but not in an elegant way? I don’t really want to google more to find out.

Three

Based on the topics that come up most often, the thing that women seem particularly anxious about is, wait for it…What Is God (or the Universe) leading me to do? This fascinates me, being a question that reveals a number of curious assumptions about what may be the psychological, emotional, and spiritual character of the average woman. To begin with, she doesn’t know what to do. And yet, she believes that she should be doing something. She doesn’t really know how to solve the problem of how to figure out what to do with herself. She is, therefore, pretty dissatisfied, knowing, as she does, that there must be an answer out there. Probably going to a conference or watching some stuff on YouTube will help her.

Four

This fascinates me because, based on how most of the cameras in most of these videos pan across the room, the crowds of women (with the occasional man thrown in) are also predominately blond, almost all made up, definitely middle class, not particularly ethnically diverse though the camera always finds some diversity, almost certainly college-educated. In other words, real money has been spent by and for these women for the precise purpose of helping them to know “what to do.”

Five

Many times, in many Women’s Bible Study videos (which, I should say, are not absolutely theologically objectionable, but give you as much as you were hoping to get in ten minutes) you could replace the word “God” with “The Universe” and all the sentences would still basically make sense.

Six

As usual, I feel like my own assumptions about the nature of God and my own expectations of myself and what Christianity is even for are completely at odds with those of the prevailing culture. First of all, I am not blond, so. Can I even read the Bible or think about surrendering to the universe? I dunno. Second, I always know what I’m supposed to do when I wake up in the morning. The problem is that I don’t want to do it. Well, sometimes I want to, but a lot of the time it’s a drag. I know I must obey my Lord on a number of troubling fronts like loving my enemies and children, dying to my own sinful self, confessing my sins, getting dinner on the table, coping with the horrible offering of the cat behind the couch, returning a lot of texts that fluttered by in the latter part of the previous day, finally dealing with the huge pile of laundry on the dining room table, finishing that book I promised to review, and working out that idea that is just beyond my grasp for an article or something, and taking another walk so I can shove myself into my precovid clothes.

Seven

Moreover, the few minutes at the beginning and end of a busy day when I get to fasten my internal spiritual eye on my Lord, the last thing I want or have time for is to be given more things to “do” by him, or anyone. Indeed, I know that many of the things I am doing are probably a waste of my time, but he doesn’t mind particularly if I keep doing them. The main thing is that he is not some energy force that is “leading and guiding” me in any particular direction if only I would settle down deep within myself to “hear” or anything. He is God—a Being ineffable, beyond the universe, which is his own creation, who nevertheless attends to the needs and sorrows of his own creature—me—through the power of the Holy Spirit and the efficacious blood of the Son. What do I need that he has not already provided? If you don’t know the answer to that question, and you’re not blond, get off the internet and go find a small church somewhere.

And go check out more takes!

*I love blond people so….