The Phrases that Define Divine Providence

Abby identifies some commonly used phrases about Providence and how the Lord works. She suggests that these ideas are not only harmful to our individual perceptions of the Lord, but to the spread of the New Church. Abby hopes that through correcting these ideas, we can present a more accurate, appealing, and useful picture of the Lord and His church. -Editor.

“God only gives you what you can handle.” “I’m sure God will smile on you for your kindness.” “If I keep following God, I will get what I deserve.”

There are these little phrases, sayings, and cliches that sneak into the way many people think about Divine Providence. Phrases that I’ve heard from Christians and non-Christians, readers of the Writings, and people who haven’t read the Writings. Whether the speaker has thought it through or not these phrases and sayings describe a kind of God and a kind of fatalism that just doesn’t sit right with me. And when I hear anyone assign these ideas to God it makes me angry. Angry because of the way that these ideas get in and make us feel a certain way about how God works, when these ideas are diametrically opposed to what I have come to understand and love about how God works.

The God that I have come to understand is a God that is completely fair, completely loving and makes complete sense. It is no condition of the person, but God that makes these things so. That is the only kind of God that I can believe in. A god that does not “reward” certain behaviour or faith in the way most people think. The ideas that these phrases casually imply represent a very unfair and biased God and while that on its own makes me upset, what upsets me more is that their use implies that the user doesn't know the real power (as I have come to understand it) held within Divine Providence.

In an attempt to clarify and hopefully demonstrate why these phrases make me angry I’ll look at a few types of them that stand out to me every time I hear them, and explain why they are upsetting to me.

“God only gives you what you can handle.”

I have heard this type of comment in a lot of different forms. Someone vaguely discussing that God doesn’t overload people with burdens, or “seeing” providence in the ways that they were spared some pain or difficulty. Using it as a way of building courage - like, they must be able to handle this or else God wouldn’t have made them deal with it. Surely a loving God wouldn’t make them take on so much that they would crumble under the burden.

The difficulty with this for me, is what about the people who DO crumble? Who aren’t able to bear up and push through? There are people all around us who aren’t coping with their burdens both emotional and physical. And what kind of God is it that specifically prevents pain and suffering too much to bear for one person and not for another? To me that is a very finicky God, and one that no longer makes rational sense.

As much as God would love for every single person to only have to face what is easy and comfortable, He just doesn’t pick and choose what happens to what people. He set up a system that is guided by laws that allow us to live in freedom. There is a section of Divine Providence that outlines these laws, and in one of his sermons Rev. B. David Holm (see here) discusses these laws:

Since the Divine Providence is the Lord's government, and any government must have laws, there are Divine laws of Providence. The first law is the most important, for it enters into all the others. This first law is "that a person should act from freedom in accordance with reason." This means that each one of us is to be both free and rational. Without these two abilities or "faculties" none of us would be truly human. We would be puppets or robots, and could neither love the Lord nor be conjoined with Him. There could be no heaven derived from the human race, nor would there be anything of eternal value. Therefore the Lord guards our freedom and rationality as the very apple of His eye. For He wants us to respond freely to His love and to cooperate rationally with His wisdom. This is the first law of Providence.

For our lives to be full and eternal we must be free. Therefore God leaves us in freedom to choose our actions - good and bad. Bad things happen despite what God would choose for us, but in every case that is because of human (ours and others’) actions impacting other humans - never because God hand-picked one person to die, one couple to get divorced, one person to go through a hurricane, one set of circumstances that the people he liked could handle. God has created everyone of us to be able to turn to and rely on Him - and if we do this we can survive spiritually. In that way He has hand-picked every single person to only be given what He can handle. That is a God that I can turn to and love because He is always there for every person in every situation and I can explain THAT to the people around me and they will feel loved and included in God’s love, instead of getting the message that they must be somehow excluded since they aren’t coping and are feeling overburdened.

“God knew that I wouldn’t be able to handle it if my child died. I can see Providence working since my child didn’t actually die, and God knew that would have broken me.” “Only strong people are given twins.”

I have heard this sentiment in various ways around loss, and I hear the comment about only strong people being given twins more often than I like. A mother should feel grateful that her child didn’t die. That is appropriate. And she should feel grateful to God for her child’s life. But the mere fact that her child didn't die should not be looked back on as providence. Because again what about the family that does lose a child? Should they feel punished? Should they feel guilty? No - it is just as much in the providence of God that the one did and the other didn’t because both children are still being equally cared for and loved. And the two families are equally cared for and loved. The providence there is that God is forever reaching out to every member of those two families, and they can learn to soak in the gratitude or can learn to ask for help or learn compassion, or in one way or another learn to grow closer to heaven and the Lord through their experience, as these passages describe:

When the Lord is with someone, He leads him and makes provision so that all that happens, whether sad or joyful, may bring him what is good. This is Divine Providence. (Arcana Coelestia 6303)

Those who trust in the Lord are constantly receiving good from Him. For whatever happens to them, whether it seems to be advantageous or not advantageous, is nevertheless good, for it serves as a means contributing to their eternal happiness. But those who trust in themselves are constantly bringing evil on themselves, for whatever happens to them, even if it seems to be advantageous and fortunate, is nevertheless bad, and consequently acts as a means contributing to their eternal unhappiness. (Arcana Coelestia 8480:1,3)

When a person understands and embraces the teachings in the Writings about life after death, and about spiritual life, and a heaven from the human race that is full of love and use, every earthly trial can be seen as building towards that. But only when these truths are fully trusted can they be a secure foundation on which to build when the natural world is overwhelming.

“God will bless you for your kindness.” “God smiles on our church because of the good we are doing.” “Our company is growing well so God must be smiling on us.”

It is easy to feel like life going well is a blessing from God. A job going well, and business growing - the things are easily attributed to God. It can also feel as though we are rewarded for good behaviour at times if we push ourselves and then something goes our way. But what about the company full of God loving employees that goes bust? What about the person who tries and tries to do kind things for others, but their own life is falling apart? That can feel and look like a very untrustworthy God. If that person full of kindness for others is not dealing head on with their own conflict and pain, is not learning how to have strength and compassion within themselves from their love of and love from God, but they hear this kind of sentiment will they not feel as if they must work harder on giving more? That is not the kind of growth towards God that I want to encourage in others. God doesn’t favour certain behaviour with blessings. Rev. B. David Holm writes this about the ways we actually benefit from our belief in God:

The Lord, in all His leading and government of us, regards what will last forever - what will be of eternal benefit to us. All the merely temporary or "temporal" things of this world are relatively unimportant in themselves, for they pass away. They are important only so far as the Lord can show us things of eternal value by means of them. Again, there is real comfort in this, for when misfortune comes (as it does to nearly all of us) we can try to gain from it what will be of eternal benefit to us - things such as patience, courage, trust in the Lord, endurance, and the will to resist temptation. Such things will last forever, for they will become part of our eternal character in the spiritual world. The misfortunes which are only of this natural world are temporary and will vanish in time.” (see here)

God cares for every single person in the exact same way. He set up the world to function within certain boundaries and that is the way it continues to work. I think that collectively we have a limited understanding of these boundaries and therefore some things appear as exceptions. But I think this is because of the things that we don’t understand - but I don’t think these are actual exceptions. I also think that people can learn powerful things — and put these things to use in their life that can appear even as miracles. But even so those are not exceptions for good behaviour, they are again the boundaries as they actually exist but that many of us misunderstand. It is not that God gives it by picking and choosing what one person should feel or experience.

I’m going to end with a collection of quotes that speak to the power of these teaching and the ways that I have felt them in my life. It truly is a life altering, anxiety reducing, happy making teaching. Reading and feeling about Divine Providence has answered a lot of the questions I had about a fair and loving and universally accepting God. One last point - while I think that it is a beautiful image to picture a stream of providence (as mentioned in a few of the passages below) I’ve come to understand it only as an image. It does not mean that those outside of the stream of providence are not being cared for and guided by the Lord equally to every other person, but rather that those who are trusting and turning to the Lord are able to feel the affects of providence in the happiness they feel and can see how everything leads to a good end, like a river or stream. But NOT that some people are outside the bounds of Divine Providence.

The Lord's foresight and providence are present within the tiniest details of a person’s life. It is in details so tiny that it is impossible to comprehend even one in many millions of them. For every smallest fraction of a moment of a person's life entails a chain of consequences extending into eternity. Indeed every moment is like a new beginning to those that follow. (Secrets of Heaven 3854)

People who are strong in truths are kept safe from harm wherever they go, even if they are in the midst of hell. (see Arcana Coelestia 6769).

Peace holds within itself trust in the Lord, the trust that He governs all things and provides all things, and that He leads toward an end that is good. When a person believes these things...he is at peace, since he fears nothing and no anxiety about things to come disturbs him. (Arcana Coelestia 8455:1,2)

Our purpose in learning about Divine providence is so that we may more fully cooperate with the Lord in fulfilling the purpose for which we were created. Just as surely as we need an understanding of the natural laws of creation in order to properly care for our body - to protect it, nourish it, and provide for its comforts and pleasures - so we also need an understanding of the spiritual laws of providence in order to provide and care for the growth of our spirit. And understanding the various operations of providence is, after all, understanding the nature and qualities of the God we seek to love. (Adapted from “Great Laws of the Divine Providence” by Rev. Frederick L. Schnarr http://www.newchurchvineyard.org/providence/the-lord-my-shepherd/readings/Concept-Article_Divine-Providence)

Those who trust in the Divine are altogether different. Though concerned about the morrow, yet are they unconcerned, in that they are not anxious, let alone worried, when they give thought to the morrow. They remain even-tempered whether or not they realize desires, and they do not grieve over loss; they are content with their lot…. They know that for those who trust in the Divine all things are moving toward an everlasting state of happiness, and that no matter what happens at any time to them, it contributes to that state. Be it known that the Divine Providence is universal, that is, in things the most minute; and that they who are in the stream of Providence are all the time carried along toward everything that is happy, whatever may be the appearance of the means. Those are in the stream of Providence who put their trust in the Divine and attribute all things to Him. Those are not in the stream of Providence who trust in themselves alone and attribute all things to themselves, because they are in the opposite, for they take away providence from the Divine, and claim it for themselves. Be it known also that insofar as anyone is in the stream of Providence, so far he is in a state of peace. (Arcana Coelestia 8478:3,4)

People argue about the ways that we should grow the church or the reasons people leave an organization. For me, the way we commonly mis-represent the teachings about Divine Providence is a place where change and growth is needed. For me, this is a powerful and under-utilised teaching that, as I’ve come to understand and love it, I’m feeling excited about finding ways of sharing with people. I think if we collectively stopped using these phrases and became more aware of other ways that we talk about the teachings of the New Church incorrectly we would be a much stronger representation of a true New Church.

What is your experience of these kinds of phrases? Do you have others that come to mind or other similar things with other teachings?

Abigail Smith

Abby is working on understanding and embracing the teachings of the New Church in the context of emotional intelligence, and working to pass that new love and affection on to the people around her.