This notion of GWFYL transforms the process of living into something like the fairy-tale path through the haunted forest -- the Mirkwood trail or the Yellow Brick Road. Except that those paths in those stories are always clearly marked, whereas the trail of GWFYL is invisible and inscrutable and can only be intuited by some visceral sense of spiritual leading.
The idea is a kind of spiritualized version of the romantic pipe-dream of The One -- and it tends to produce the same fearfully tentative, second-guessing approach to living. There's a bit of good advice in Conor Oberst's "First Day," in which he sings, "I'd rather be working for a paycheck / than waiting to win the lottery." But the notion of GWFYL or of waiting for The One turns that advice upside-down, viewing such practical work as a dangerous distraction from one's lottery-playing duties.
One reason I don't much care for this idea of GWFYL is that I've seen its effect on young evangelicals forced to shoulder its crushing burden. No one can live like that, governed by an ultimate-stakes gamble based on unwritten rules, offering no assurance other than that the potential for inadvertent-but-damning disobedience lurks in every decision.
Just as importantly, I don't care for the way this notion takes something explicitly clear and invariable -- the will of God -- and twists it into something mysterious, ever-changing and idiosyncratic.
What is God's Will For Your Life? the prophet asks, and then answers his own question, "To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." That's from the Bible -- a book that's rather repetitive and unambiguous on the question of GWFYL. On God's will for everyone's life, actually.
But somehow none of that ever enters into evangelical conversations of career and romantic prospects and GWFYL. Whatever it is supposed to mean, GWFYL doesn't seem to have much of anything to do with acting justly or loving mercy or breaking the chains of oppression or setting the captives free or feeding the hungry or comforting the sick or giving freely to those in need or planting gardens or ensuring that the city prospers or loving one's neighbor as oneself.
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And that is all from me today. Perhaps this weekend shall provide some interesting blog posts. Perhaps not.
Wow...I'm going rather British today. No idea why. Ah well.
In fun news, I'm channeled gypsy for my outfit today. Hehe. Off to lunch, then finish work, class, coffee with a friend. Phew.
1 comments:
from what I've heard of the shack, it's a good story with bad theology. I haven't read it myself.
* shrug *
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on it, though.
I definitely understand what you mean about Trust and Control, and appreciate your proper use of Capitalization of important words. (I picked this up from A.A. Milne, myself.)
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