Is There Anyone Out There?

In the middle of your daily life do not be surprised to find that you are not alone. We stretch out our day, as an artist stretches out canvas, and proceed to fill in the daily detail, our own daily detail, and then occasionally we find that the detail of the day has been disrupted.

Usually we feel exasperated that our programmed day has felt disjointed, it is only on reflection that we find this was a detour for a higher purpose. It is natural to get frustrated when our nice neatly laid out plan is changed. We like to think that we are in control of our life, and somehow, we all know that we aren’t. It really doesn’t matter how “spiritual” we are, or not. We know that there is a “beyond us” that can take control of our life, virtually at the drop of a hat.

Often we can find any number of causes for the change to our day, usually external, but occasionally we just have to bite the bullet and put it down to dumb luck. While it is true that other people let us down, it is entirely another thing when we are the agent of someone else’s day being disrupted, and it is even another thing again if we benefit from the change in day plan.

Just a five second delay to your day can have totally unimaginable consequences to your day, not always value neutral. You drive up to a set of traffic lights and manage to catch the green light, usually you will be alright, on the rare moment when you are not the result can be fatal.

There are any number of situations that we can face in any day, that can be put down to “dumb luck” , just like the traffic lights. Often we choose to do just that, call something “lucky’, in the absence of some other cause. The reason for this explanation is quite simple; we prefer to maintain the belief that we are the masters of our own destiny.

To what extent should we be open to the possibility that there is an “other” aspect to our lives? It probably should be a question that we are open to, given that so often we find our daily life is beyond your planned expectation. It is just as reasonable to put something down to dumb luck as to consider that there may be a “something” out there who may have an interest in us and our life.

Quite apart from the personal aspect to the question, is the interpersonal element. We are quite happy; it seems, to attribute things like poverty and natural disasters to a god or some other outside influence. The fact that we can blame an entity other than human for these events begs the question of whether this same entity would be interested in the outcomes of personal interaction

Christians believe that there is a god who is not only interested in the personal aspect to our lives, but even before this He initiated the entire universe that we know of. Given that we live in a world that is governed by laws of science that we do not understand. Is it such a quantum leap to accept the existence of such a “person?”

I know that I am attempting to do a masterful job of “fence sitting.” That is deliberate. I believe that the question of your spiritual orientation is of such primary importance that it should ultimately be up to the individual. What I do know is that for me there is a Creative God who is so interested in my space that He made the decision to redeem me by the death of Jesus His Son.