Herschel Sims is a young man who deserves a chance to get his life back on the right track. A local hero here in Abilene, he led Abilene High to a state championship in 2009. He then went to Oklahoma State and had an excellent freshman year. Then he got in trouble with the law and got kicked out of school. Now he’s at ACU, hoping to play football again. I hope it goes well for him.
In an article in yesterday’s Abilene Reporter-News, Sims made the following statement:
They miss me up there, and I miss them dearly. It just wasn’t what God had in store for me.
Wait a minute! I know that’s a common theological outlook, but surely we can see how ridiculous this point of view is.
God didn’t set young Mr. Sims up to fail. He didn’t lay a trap for him, causing him to forge checks he had stolen from a teammate. This isn’t God’s fault.
It’s not about what God had in store for Mr. Sims. I hope that God will take this mistake and use it to change Sims’ life. God can take man’s sin and bring good out of it.
But God isn’t responsible for that sin. Sorry, Mr. Sims. I’m guessing that God had very good things in store for you. You messed up and missed out on them… as we all have. I hope and pray that you’ll know how to receive the blessings God sends your way in the future. May we all get better at overcoming sin.
Well said, Tim. I think we as Christians must treat God’s will and revelation “the Lord put on my heart…” with so much more nuance that we are currently offering.
Tim,
i have to say a lot of religious people are prone to language that i’m not even sure what they mean–these claims that seem to entail causation or even inspiration sometimes. Even if God did cause something in my life or give me an idea, why assume He would *also* let me know about? Plenty of the stories in scripture show us godly people who were virtually unaware of God’s providential acts in their narratives. (i’m tempted to ask, why assume we’re more privileged than they?)
i really wanted to ask you about one of your “links to go”–namely, the “standing or kneeling” one. In Orthodoxy, there are a variety of postures we practice, but i never used (or was taught) any posturing in the CoC. i grew up hearing that there were congregations where kneeling during prayer was the custom, but i never witnessed this, not once. In fact, what i experienced more often than anything was a great suspicion toward any bodily posture except bowed heads/closed eyes. This attitude was especially prevalent in churches which vocally opposed to more “liberal” practice of raising hands during worship.
i remember multiple conservative teachers explaining to me that “raised hands” mentioned in Timothy referred to the posture of a prayer leader, and that this practice was really unlike what was practiced among “liberal” churches. Okay, fine, but what always fascinated me was that despite this talking point, i never once saw one single prayer leader used the raised hands posture that all those conservative teachers argued was mentioned in the Timothy verse!
Anyway, the question i’m really driving at is that i’ve never been able to figure out why CoC’s are so suspicious of different postures in worship. Just stand or just sit and bow your head sometimes, but that’s it. i realize other religious groups might argue that there’s a “showiness” about postures, but i never once heard this rationale growing up–only the suspicious against becoming “liberal.” Do you have any thoughts on what this is about?
i honestly feel cheated in a way. In 12 step programs, they teach you to “fake it til you make it,”–meaning that you need to just do things and produce the effort even if they feel alien or foreign or unnatural, and eventually your heart and attitude will catch up to your behavior. i’m realizing personally that this is precisely the benefit i get from the various postures and visible practices in Orthodoxy. In other words, if i waited until kneeling or prostrating in prayer *felt* natural or genuine, then really, i’d probably never do it because the attitudes and feelings which would make that act natural and genuine are the very ones i lack and need to acquire! How to acquire them? Well, one thing i could do is kneel and prostrate myself until this roused in me the attitude of submission and reverence. (Of course, i’m not claiming that will *necessarily* happen; we can certainly do these things with a bad attitude if we’re bound and determined to remain hard-hearted about it.)
Anyway, curious what you thought.
–guy
Guy,
I got no answers for you. It’s weird. It’s wrong. And it’s part of our history. And, for many, still part of the present.
Grace and peace,
Tim