The Meaning of Providence

Last updated on: November 11, 2011 at 8:17 am by Amy Julia Becker

The Meaning of Providence 2011-11-10T21:59:27-05:00 Amy Julia Becker

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I wrote a post last week called “We’re Moving, or the Providence of God” in which I described my husband’s new job as the Headmaster of a small boarding school in Connecticut. But I never really explained what I meant by the “providence” part.

I don’t think God has us in lockstep. And I don’t think God leaves us to our own devices to make decisions about our lives.

There’s some mysterious interaction between God’s “will” and our will, God’s desires and our desires, God’s hopes and cares and dreams and ours. It’s providential. Somehow.

One of my favorite books of theology is John Taylor’s The Go Between God, (recently reprinted so you can buy it for a somewhat reasonable fee) in which he describes the role of the Holy Spirit as the one who connects us to one another and to God. So our hope in making decisions–and especially major life decisions like uprooting our family and moving to a 4,000 person town and taking a job with huge responsibilities–our hope is to listen to God’s Spirit, to trust that God does have a will for us, and a purpose for us, and to try to place ourselves in the path of that purpose.

We didn’t hear an audible voice. We aren’t robots. And we are fallible. We could have made the wrong choice. The thing is, even then, even in our fallibility and frailty, we believe in the providence of God. That even when we make the wrong choices, God’s desire is still to love us, to care for us, and to guide us. So off we go, grateful for the one who goes before us, grateful for the one who cares not only about us but about the students and faculty and staff and everyone else associated with this school, grateful that we aren’t alone.

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