Evangelical Christians will tell you there is no such thing as coincidences. The ever-watching, all-knowing, voyeuristic God of the Evangelical is involved in the most minute details of their life. He even counts the hairs on their head every day.
No matter what happens in their life, the Evangelical “sees” God.
Today, I went to the Dermatologist to pay for the skin sins of my youth. No cancer this time. Nothing out of the ordinary. She did remove a cyst from my face, a common problem for me. In, out, and done. Let’s eat.
We drove over to Penn Station to eat lunch.(the food was great) A local Fort Wayne radio station, K105, was having a live remote from the restaurant. While there I struck up a conversation with two of people who were doing the live remote.
We talked Cincinnati Reds baseball and Cincinnati Bengals football. The one man had on a Cincinnati Reds hat and I had on a Cincinnati Bengals hat. Both men were life-long Reds/Bengals fans.
I was shocked to meet fellow fans in Fort Wayne. Fort Wayne is Indianapolis Colts, Chicago Bears, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, and Detroit Tigers country. Reds or Bengals sightings are very rare.
What are the odds of three Reds/Bengals fans (not including my wife and children who are also fans) being in the same place, at the same time, in Fort Wayne, Indiana?
In my Christian days I would have viewed this as a God moment. These days, I am quite happy to say…it was a coincidence.
We all have things that happen in our lives that seem strange or we can’t explain. The Evangelical sees God in everything, including things that seem strange or defy explanation.
Here is how I translate the Evangelical view of my “moment” at Penn Station. All around the world people are suffering, starving, and dying of thirst. All around the world war is raging and governments are oppressing their citizens. So much “real” need, yet the Evangelical God made sure three Reds/Bengals fans were at Penn Station on Dupont Rd, in Fort Wayne Indiana, at 12:07 P.M. on July 12, 2012.
To the Evangelical I say:
Indeed, what a m-i-g-h-t-y God you serve.
We humans are terrible at statistics and probability. We tend to remember the unusual events, but don’t calculate the odds correctly in most cases (if we did, the lottery would not exist.)
I used to see all sorts of ‘God-made appointments’ when I was an evangelical, only to find I was seeing only what I wanted to see.
I still have a lot of friends who do this, I simply sit quietly and don’t respond.
It would be a real God moment if all those in poverty and violent situations were lifted up out of their conditions in life. Then we can talk about a God moment.
I have a friend, she is a strong believer (yes, we do have strong believers in the Methodist Church). She absolutely believes that nothing is coincidence. I think this belief helps her deal with life’s ups and downs. When bad things happen, it’s satan or god is testing her. When good things happen, god is blessing her.
Either way, she remains a joyful and hopeful person. Her joy is attractive. People gravitate toward her and want to hear what she has to say. Life is full of coincidence, but connecting coincidence with a loving, caring god gives her comfort and peace.
So even if there is no god, it appears the coincidence-to-god connection is good for mental health.
It use to give me comfort and peace as well. I use to believe it was helpful. Later I learned that “the coincidence-to-god connection” was bad for my mental health. I was the joyful and hopeful person and I was the person who people gravitated too. But along the way I was denying my own health, mental and physical because of the erroneous belief that God and Satan were doing their thing. One day the bottom may fall out on your Methodist friend. I hope not but often what we witness on the outside doesn’t reflect what is going on on the inside.