Christicism

     On a radio preaching program last week, I heard a pastor, with whom I normally agree, talking about knowing the will of God for your life.  He called one view the "Dot" theory, which says God's will for you is this one specific point from which you must not stray. His opposing theory was that that God has a general will for your obedience but doesn't particularly care what job you take, where you live or who you marry as long as you are not disobedient to scripture. I think the truth lies in the middle of these two extremes.  God's will is neither a hard to find tightrope nor a toll gate past which you can wander as you please.
    I did agree, however, with his assertion that many Christians interpret random events as signs of God's direction.  I call this Christian mysticism or, since I never use two words when I can get by with one, "Christicism".  One common form of this is "Bible roulette", opening the Bible to a random passage and taking that as God's message to you.  The "scripture shuffle" works on the same principle but uses cards with verses on them. Some Christians use the "Walkie Talkies" technique. They use the phrase "God told me" as if they were in constant, verbal communication.  This is, at best, presumptuous and often used to defend unwise behavior. If God told you to do something, it can't possibly be wrong. Then there is the "Signs, signs, everywhere a sign" method.  For example, when I asked my teenage son to pray about whether he should attend youth group, he told me God didn't want him to go because he missed the white goose.  He had prayed that if God wanted him to go to youth group, he would hit a white goose when he was hunting.  Signs that are dependent on our cooperation make it easy to manipulate God's will without even consciously aiming to.  Unfortunately this "God's Will Hunting" method is also used by adult, long term Christians.  One of my church friends found a complex, affirming message from God through finding a barrette that matched her outfit. Her life was filled with mystical messages from God.  The combination of circumstances + deceitful hearts seldom = Godly wisdom.
     Why would God go through all the effort to produce and preserve his word if he planned to reveal himself through subliminal messages?  Most of us can barely understand liminal messages.  My first 15 years as a Christian I wanted to be in God's will but was never really sure that I was.  Then I started BSF and discovered that being in God's will was the intersection of daily study and application of God's word + life circumstances.  Those pesky application questions with which BSF mines the daily study changed my life.  Knowing God's will for my life has gone from an occasional flash to a steady beacon.  I no longer wonder and wander.  Frankly, I am a little frightened of, and for, Christians who take their guidance from the schizophrenic spirituality of circumstance.  Finding God's will is both simpler and harder than the Magical Mystery Tour of Christicism.