Topping the list of the most annoying and least helpful excuses ever is the phrase, "It was God's plan." George Zimmerman, a Florida neighborhood watch member charged with the murder of Trayvon Martin in Florida, used it this week in an interview with Sean Hannity. But the phrase and accompanying dangerous theology is bigger than Zimmerman, Fox News or the mighty U.S. justice system.
Here's five reasons to stop throwing around the phrase, "It was God's plan."
5. Don't make God into some mighty event planner extraordinaire.
I often have a bagel for breakfast. Sometimes I'm in a hurry or not in the right mood, so I have a banana or smoothie instead. It seems absurd to suggest that God plans my breakfast menu, determining when I forget to buy new bagels or when my particular bananas are ripe. God surely cares that my breakfast is healthy and tasty, and that it reminds me of God's creation and those without food each day, but since "plan" language is too much to swallow at breakfast we should be careful not to throw it around so easily the rest of the day. God is bigger than a cosmic event planner.
4. Who are you to know God's plan?
When an individual claims he or she knows God's plan it often is code for, "I have some secret knowledge that makes me extra special and the rest of the world just better trust me on it because God has only revealed it to me." Certainly God can work through individuals in amazing ways, but such talk usually reveals sinful and dangerous American individualism rather than God's corporate love for all the world. God wills humility too. Get some.
3. God's plan or a failure of personal responsibility?
When I was in high school a friend of mine was killed in a car wreck. He was not wearing his seat belt and thrown from his vehicle. "God's plan" language was used often at my high school that year. Claiming that the incident was divinely ordered helped people cope with their grief. It was easier than claiming the sad truth that, if my friend had buckled his seatbelt, he likely would have survived. Blaming the victim is never healthy, but blaming God for our own mistakes is no better.
2. God's hidden plan?
I've never understood the thinking that God has some meticulously ordered plan for each of us every day ... that God then hides from us. Seems rather inefficient, don't you think? The truth is that God does have a plan for us, but it isn't hidden behind some magical door waiting for us to say the magical words "open sesame" or cross ourselves in the right way. That leads to the point that:
1. God's plan is written clearly, but it's not as simple as a checklist or the latest fad diet.
God wishes the best for us, and cares for us -- and all the world -- more fully than we can imagine. To this end God does present a plan of sorts for us. It's found at the breakfast table if you so choose, because it's in the Bible. The plan is in Micah 6:8, to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God. It's in the Gospels several times, to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:30-31, Matt. 22:37-40, Luke 10:27). The plan includes clothing ourselves with compassion, kindness and patience, forgiving one another, and crowning all with love (Col. 3:12-14). That's God's plan. That's God's hope for us. Before we throw around any more dangerous "God's plan" language, let's try living it out for a change.
Follow Rev. Adam J. Copeland on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ajc123
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Who are you to question god's plan?
"I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand" --God (Sounds like a plan to me)
If zimmerman had said "It was god's plan" and he was instead talking about how he was walking under 2nd story window, and a baby fell into his arms and was saved, this article would never have been written, it would have been replaced with "praise de Jesus!" etc.
#1) You cannot argue with people who believe in God. They'll believe what they want to believe no matter what logic you throw at them. There's no point in trying, so I stopped doing that long ago. Most people believe because they want to believe in something other than the simple truth that life is random, there are good times and bad times, and no one but YOU is responsible for the choices that affect your life. It comforts them to believe in a higher power, so I say let them.
#2) IF there is a God, he certainly is not a benevolent God. Just look around you at all of the pain, suffering, and injustice in the world on a daily basis. If he's not benevolent, why would I want to praise him?
Bottom line? Learn to think for yourself and just treat others as you want to be treated. Everything else will take care of itself.
(~yr 500BC) Zi gong (a disciple of Confucius) asked: "Is there any one word that could guide a person throughout life?"
The Master replied: "How about 'shu' [reciprocity]: never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself?"
--Confucius, Analects XV.24, tr. David Hinton
Here ye these words and heed them well, the words of Dea, thy Mother Goddess, "I command thee thus, O children of the Earth, that that which ye deem harmful unto thyself, the very same shall ye be forbidden from doing unto another, for violence and hatred give rise to the same. My command is thus, that ye shall return all violence and hatred with peacefulness and love, for my Law is love unto all things. Only through love shall ye have peace; yea and verily, only peace and love will cure the world, and subdue all evil."
—Codex Vias, Part Two
We are all born sinners,say's so in the bible but most people never think to ask him for help until there's no other choice or they're a second away from death? so why should he help then? If God didn't intend us to sin he'd never wrote the 10 commandments. He gave us rules on the 10 sins that he wouldn't forgive so easily & I myself believe a "victim" never suffers if killed violently as was my husband? THANK GOD for shock! Ya know?
With each word, they dig themselves deeper and deeper into a pit of denial and back peddling.
The only way to stay religious is by keeping the shades drawn and the blinders firmly attached
God purposes though. His elevated purpose, which has nothing to do with the GZ debacle, never fails.
BUT HE LOVES YOU!
HE LOVES YOU and HE NEEDS MONEY!!
For the rest, google "George Carlin Religion" and enjoy.
And then he planned to become a neighborhood watchman where he knew that he might meet someone someday that was up to no good in that neighborhood.
And now he wants us all to believe that it was God's plan for Trayvon Martin to cross his path?
Please God, I hope the prosecutors that will help to decide Zimmerman's fate have a plan too, and that the jurors see that it was Zimmerman's plan to shoot that night all along.
Michael I guess God told zimmerman how to try and out smart the law about lying about the money he's lying about Martin confonted him first.