Random Events and Coincidences In Life

Yesterday was a good day to be in church. The pastor was in top form. He had just returned from a mountain retreat and he was well rested, relaxed and ready to go. The delivery, organization and research for the sermon was among his best. One of the major premises of the sermon was, however, in my view, incorrect and misleading, bordering on dangerous.

Let me say at the outset that this is my opinion. Most others present would agree with the pastor and I would be in the very small minority (as usual). Neither is this a personal attack on the pastor. I consider him my friend and I have a great deal of respect for him as a vocational minister. He is very good with people. It is his gift. You cannot go away feeling bad after talking to him. If you do, it's probably because you are the problem and not him.

I would also say that this may be one of those times where I point out a distinction where there is no difference. Perhaps we just have two ways of getting to the same place. I do not know. We will see.

My point of disagreement comes when he says that there are no coincidences in life or random events. Everything that happens in our reality has purpose and even a divine purpose for us and that we ourselves have special and specific purposes in this life.

I do not think this is correct or biblical or even close to being true and it might even be dangerous for young Christians to entertain these ideas as they were presented. Perhaps it is half true. I might be able to meet him there. Let me explain.

I would say that most events in the lives of rank and file Christians ARE random and / or coincidental. God is not directly involved in most of them unless we invite Him to help us deal with them. He has a general will for all our lives as revealed in the Bible. He has also created us all with specific abilities to enable us to serve Him in unique ways, unique specifically to ourselves and maybe a few others.  Our calling in service to Him is to use the tools he gave us to react to the randomness and the coincidental events in our lives.

Learning to recognize these events should not be necessary or even required if we are following God's general will for us outlined in His scriptures. Our reaction to these random life events should simply be our automatic Christian response; our use of our God given abilities. None of this requires any specialness of purpose. Consider this parable.



Two parents give their children coloring books and two different sets of crayons each containing different shades and hues. They ask their children to work together to complete the coloring books to the best of their abilities regardless of what might come up on its' pages. The only thing the parents ask is that the children stay within the lines of the book's images to ensure a beautiful and unique product. Everything else would be up to them as they move from random image to random image.

And so the children begin their work, forced to cooperate because of the distinctiveness of their individual crayon colors and artistic skill levels. They have everything they need to move through this task as it was provided by their parents. Now if they refuse to do the work or ignore their parent's instruction about how to do it, they will have trouble coming their way. Obedience is their key to success.

And this is the way it is with us. We do not know what will come up in our life coloring books, but if we do the will of our Father and we use what He gave us, everything will be better because of the freedom He gave us to decide how to complete the task set before us. We are not special. We are not equal in our abilities. We are merely different in our approach and talent as we react to life's randomness and work together toward that end.

The danger in telling someone that they have a special purpose that no one else has should be self evident. When we become filled with the notion of specialness, we begin to view ourselves in a different light. We may even think more highly of ourselves than our brethren or at least more highly than we ought. There is also the danger of disappointment and loss of faith when the random events of our lives smack down that alleged specialness and we realize we are mere mortals after all.

Generally and historically speaking, the only people that seem to have special purpose and significance in God's overall purposes are those directly called by Him and those He speaks directly to. The Bible is filled with these people (prophets, apostles, etc) , but it is also filled with people that did God's will without any 'special' calling. They were merely obedient to what they knew from scripture was His true and perfect will.

To conclude, I would say that life is mostly random, meaningless, labor intensive and painful (see Genesis 3). It's what we do with what we've been given that makes it worth every one's time. While God is in control, He is not a control freak. He has given us decision making power - a bit of His sovereignty - to make life here a little less nasty and brutish, though short. We have the crayons. We just have to stay within the lines. Now go do some coloring.