Divine Will, Part 1

by Tony Chavira

Let’s presume, for a moment, that God exists....

There are only two key components of existence that God has a powerful bearing on: the manipulation and creation of the universe and all life in it, and a basic system of morality. He ingrained that system in us, His inheritors of the Earth.

At some point in our lives we’ve wondered, why did God create the universe to look and act like this? There are cosmic and microcosmic patterns and deliberate asymmetry that allow for the life to flourish on the scale of smaller than small to larger than large. And God developed a universe that allows for the direct interaction of all of these elements at all times. We are part of the galaxy; we are made up of its fundamental components. There is no division between us and the wider universe. We are part of its fundamental makeup, and it is our domain. Therefore God has forced us to live our lives and interact with the universe the only way we’ll ever know how: through the pathways of His design.

Thereby, there is a direct relationship between the organization of something very large and the organization of something very small. It’s only an issue of complexity. For example, it may be easier for God to make you happy than it would for God to make a small group of people happy. It may be easier for God to make a small group of people happy than a society of people happy, and so on. If this is truly the common-sense case, God must have designed our world to be lived in smaller communities. Here is a true, God-ordained lesson for smart density: designing a small community will always be easier to work with and satisfy than a whole city. In fact, maybe God wants us to design cities one block (or even one building) at a time.

Pillars of Creation (Hubble photo)

But there is a direct relationship between the organization of something very large and that of something very small. One change to your home, lot or street block might have profound repercussions on the community, maybe on the entire city. No real “large scale plan” developed by man (redevelopment or otherwise) would ever compete with God’s plan for the organic creation of a city. London or Paris or Mumbai might be examples of cities that just formed over hundreds and hundreds of years. It was God’s divine hand, not man’s. And yet, God has made man the keeper of the Earth. What can we control if we can’t control the outcome of our planning efforts?

This is where morality comes into play. God designed people to have a strong inherent sense of morality. A moral compass, if you will, to guide us through His wonderful world and through its development. And we are given the choice to work toward His will as it reveals itself, or to deviate in any way we choose. Most people you know are probably inherently good people. They are trying to find God’s path and meaning in their actions by following their conscience and making decisions that seem “right” to them, even if hindsight proves their decision wrong.

If God truly has a plan for all of us, and if God truly works to test our faith in Him and in a just universe, then this is a great time to be alive to prove your love and devotion to God. Between societal risks attributed to global warming and pollution, developing housing and healthy environs for impoverished communities, and working to coagulate a human-designed economy so that we can all prosper without preying on each other, there is much of God’s work to be done.

But God, in his infinite wisdom, designed a universe in which we were created to serve a special purpose. This purpose would be revealed to us through the agonizing outcome of very, very hard decisions, and it’s up to us to live with the decisions we make, while knowing that God is ever-forgiving, ever-encouraging and ever-loving. As long as we trust in Him, we can’t go wrong. All we need to do is look out for each other, treat others the way we want to be treated, and turn the other cheek. Don’t kill, don’t steal, and don’t lie.

We may not able to control the outcome of our vast city-planning efforts, but we can absolutely control the decisions we make in shaping our little part of the city. We can work with our neighbors, work with the city and work with developers and nonprofits to allow for the meek to raise up and literally inherit the Earth (see Matthew 5:5). Or we can choose to look down on the downtrodden, and perpetuate the cycle of imperfect human behavior that brought us into our trying present state.

We therefore have two options: we can follow God’s path and take action to make this a better and more equal world in His eyes, or we can falter and choose a path that continues to leave people feeling isolated in their suburban homes, living amidst man-made pollution, and frustrated with an exploitative, ever-cycling, ever-rising-and-crashing economy. At some point we need to just trust in God and perpetually work toward a better future. All of us can individually chip in to do our part toward attaining the more perfect existence God has intended for us. It’s a future that we always knew we could achieve.

(Next week, we'll presume that God doesn’t exist....)

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