Many people love to make resolutions at the start of the New Year. These hope-filled proclamations of life change are interesting because they so often end in failure and excuses. There are so many things that we can learn about ourselves from this, but there is one in particular that I think is worth focusing on this morning. It is the relationship between hope and excuses, more accurately, it is how hope and aspirations so often turn to excuses. The one that I am most familiar with is going to the gym. I have never really made New Year's resolutions myself, but as a perpetual gym goer, I am quite familiar with people who do make resolutions. Getting in shape, going to the gym, or some facsimile is, according to Google, the most common resolution every year. What typically happens is that people have the desire to get in shape and so resolve at the start of the new year to start going to the gym. Everything starts out great; they go to the gym every other day or so, that is until the problems start. See, getting in shape and staying that way is a lot of work. It requires going through pain and being tired. Most people, even with the best of intentions, hit this wall and take the easy way out. After all, it is much easier to simply stay in bed instead of getting up early. All those good intentions and hopes turn into excuses. The people who make the resolutions stick are those who have a greater goal. They have something beyond the act itself to keep them motivated. Most often, they have someone who holds them accountable and pushes them forward.
Question # 18
As we continue to look at the Westminster Larger Catechism, we come to a question about providence.
What are God's works of providence?
You are probably wondering how New Year's resolutions about going to the gym have anything to do with the providence of God, and we will get to that soon, but for now, we need to talk about what providence is. The answer that the catechism gives is a good one. It says;
God's works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving, and governing all his creatures; ordering them, and all their actions, to his own glory.
Said another way, providence is how God interacts with all of creation. There are a lot of non-Christian versions of providence, many of which you have likely referenced in your life: concepts such as fate, luck, karma, and chance. But these are not the same as providence. In most of these other concepts, especially luck and chance, there is no reason for what happens to us. A tree fell on your house? Luck and chance say that there is no reason behind it, it is simply how things happen sometimes. Karma says that the tree fell on your house because of something you did in this or a previous life. None of these ideas are biblical or even really logical. The point of most of them is to either deny the existence or power of God and, by extension, to remove any responsibility that we bear in the process. Chance, in particular, at least how it is used in relation to things like the theory of evolution, replaces God with arbitrariness. It removes all meaning and purpose for why we are here and everything that happens.
Providence and Responsibility
The reality is that God is in control of all that he has created, and nothing happens outside of his plan. Even our actions are under God's providence. We are told this in several places in scripture, such as Proverbs 16:9, "The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps." Romans 8:28, "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." Proverbs 16:33, "The lot is cast in the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD." Acts 17:26-27, "And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him, yet he is actually not far from each one of us." The idea is a simple one: God is in control. This does not lessen our responsibility though. There are not really any good analogies for this, because there is nothing in creation that can really represent the actions of God, but the relationship between parent and child is one that can teach us something. A child is responsible for their actions, while at the same time, it is the parent who is ultimately in charge and responsible for making the plans and ensuring they are carried out.
Resolutions and Providence
To come back to the example of New Year's resolutions, I want to explain how I think that they relate. See, the purpose of providence in scripture is to give us hope, but far too often, people either use it as an excuse to say if God is in control, I am not responsible, or use that same reasoning to reject the idea entirely. It illustrates something about our nature as fallen humanity. We are always looking for an excuse to get out of being responsible. We want to blame God for everything that happens in our lives. We want to blame him for the tree falling on our house, while in most cases we could have avoided the tree falling on the house by watchful, caring for the tree, or removing one that was in danger of falling. We do the same thing with our resolutions. We start to blame everything else around us for not holding to them. Our work, kids, or other obligations become the reason we failed, rather than admitting that it was simply too hard. If we have a greater goal and do not let excuses come in, we are much more likely to succeed. The same is true with understanding the providence of God. If we recognize that God is in control, we can work harder, not worrying about what comes, because we know that God is going to use it for his glory. All the pain will be worth it. It is time to trust in God's providence in the new year.
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