I almost called this The Sovereign-Free-Will Agency of God, Man and Developing Children but by the end of this piece, decided Is It Written? would be more fitting.
A little play-on-words and content…
I recently read a lengthy review of a book called the Openness of God which deals with our understanding of God’s sovereignty and human free agency and the often pondered quest to understand the secret workings of God in the world and in ourselves.
A string of thoughts led me to think about our worldview lens that often leads us to filter our understandings of God and the Bible, in all probability, through our earliest life experiences.
I suppose that, too, could be the subject of either God’s intentional decree or the result of human free agency – this interplay of choices that lead to our personal formation.
Most people tend to filter their understanding of God the Father through their own experiences of their own earthly fathers.
If that experience was positive and healthy then they tend to have a positive and healthy view of God, and vice versa.
That Jesus affirmed this idea would lead us to believe there is some connection in formation and spiritual thinking that stems from this vantage point.
“If you, imperfect as you are, know how to lovingly take care of your children and give them what’s best, how much more ready is your heavenly Father to give wonderful gifts to those who ask him?”
– Matthew 7:11 The Passion Translation
Years ago through pastoral counseling it was discussed that for me, since my mother was the most powerful force in my childhood in terms of control and negativity and my father, being passive and my nurturer, was more in the role of the typical mother figure, that my views of God the Father and especially control issues might be prone to distortions more associated with my mother, rather than my father. It was a reversal of sorts stemming from my own early formation.
I was encouraged to connect more with Jesus the Son rather than God the Father, for whatever that is worth… in terms of practical spirituality.
I do think that helped me at the time but as I have continued my journey I have moved into a place where I connect pretty equally with both Jesus the Son and God the Father. I admit I don’t think much about directly connecting to the Holy Spirit of the theological Trinitarian God.
If I were to analyze, I think that my mind connects in thought to God the Father and God the Son and I am driven by intuition or sensing, whether this is in my heart or spirit I don’t know, spirituality is not a science per se, but I do sense connection to God through the Holy Spirit as well – whom Jesus said would be left as our helper to come alongside us in the journey.
What I found interesting and worth our reflection after my reading were thoughts about why from my earliest commitment to Christ, issues of God’s sovereignty and free agency seemed so very important to me.
I believe I can trace it to the earliest formation of my own self, if we want to conjoin psychology to religion, to a degree.
I don’t think my mother ever treated me as a separate person with my own thoughts, desires, intentions and free agency. I understand that she also was formed somehow in her earliest life into this deep personality disorder that also had various true and deep psychoses superimposed upon it.
And I understand that she surely lived in her own world full of pain, whether she could honestly evaluate it and more importantly, choose to seek her own freedom and growth and to break cycles and truly love others…well…that issue will probably dwell within my core at times for my lifetime, sadly…
Sometimes I feel that my references to her and my early life cannot be fully grasped by others, suffice to say she did not simply need some Prozac but my earliest home life was filled with a number of truly bizarre things.
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The idea that we are all simply actors on a stage in some drama of a seemingly capricious God has always been repugnant to me.
While the idea of the pathos of God, biblically manifest, has always drawn me very deeply to Jesus, God the Father and the Holy Spirit.
My mother’s personality disorder aspect of her mental illness was never diagnosed during her lifetime. Only in therapy since 2015, when I now have tangible items obtained after her death in 2001, has a deeper analysis, professionally, been made post mortem (to the degree possible and, likely…) that helps me continue in my own adult healing journey.
One such item that fascinates me is an envelope addressed to me during middle school, containing a letter of commendation for my writing skills in an elective project.
While I cannot recall the exact dialogue around this event (I vaguely remember the project), I think it is hard to spin her notations in any way that seem normal and healthy. Perhaps the casual onlooker might do so but I have a vast database in my psyche that determines my understanding and most accurate interpretation of her notations.
It seemed that my mother lived her own self through me. I was treated as an object, in a sense, some projection of her own self and control. Whether this was a psychotic feature, or a narcissistic/borderline personality disorder expression, probably is hair-splitting, as in many cases with these issues.
Probably all three conjoined.
I think it’s important to remember in our own parenting that our children are their own persons with their own thoughts, desires and free agency. Their accomplishments are theirs and not ours. Although, it is equally true that we as parents do have the ability (and responsibility) to teach, model, guide, and direct – according to what seems appropriate at given ages and stages of development – our children ultimately are their own persons making their own choices, more and more as they journey their own journey.
I will say, I do think there can be a flip side to this coin sometimes…parents are people, too. Parents are people with their own thoughts, preferences and beliefs. This balance of mutual respect can become more and more difficult when our children are grown. The Scripture that comes to mind, loosely, concerning this idea is when God says His thoughts are not our thoughts. Or when He finally answers Job, asking, “Where were you when I did this…or that…????” (paraphrase).
Actually, the book of Job is good basis for consideration of some of issues of God’s sovereignty vs. Human free-agency.
Early formation is powerful and it is retrospectively fearful and humbling to look back upon the early years of our children and wish we may have done better in some regards. The struggle between authoritarian and permissive parenting extremes is very real. In looking backwards, I wonder how well this was balanced into the authoritative parenting model with my own children at different life stages. I think, in our efforts to permit free agency in our children, for whatever reasons seemed right, this difficulty with maintain authority when appropriate was quite a challenge.
I understood even at that time that the swinging from permissive to authoritarian (usually in exasperation) was potentially the most damaging of parenting styles, at least according to many parenting model materials, yet it was a real struggle to parent from the middle. Surely there were a multiplicity of reasons residing in the personal qualities and life experiences of myself, my former first husband and our children and I believe we did our best and handed our children a better childhood than either of us had, hopefully.
Parents have a lot of stresses on them when they first enter parenthood, especially dealing, whether they realize it or not, in their own journey and formation from childhood, encounter all kinds of personal and family dynamic issues.
It is a time where replication of the best parts of their own childhood are certainly called for to bring to the stage of their own parenting, and where the parts of their own childhood patterns that are negative, need to be recognized and worked through to break destructive cycles.
Certainly I think it isn’t a leap to see the connection here to understandings/ideas about the sovereignty of God, human free agency, and whether we are part of some divine pre-scripted eternal stage drama and a simply puppet expressions, or whether the creative flow of God and life is much more infathomable and complex than that.
I seem to often think of Rob Bell quotes, and one comes to mind along the lines of, “what kind of universe are we dealing with and what kind of God are we dealing with?”
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In the Bible there is reference to the sins of the fathers being passed from generation to generation. This is often seen as some curse from the divine but maybe we can see it as a statement, spiritually, conjoining what we know naturally occurs in human development and family systems.
Sometimes I think of sin and judgement not in harsh terms but simply the natural consequences of many things. Like the laws of nature. Reaping and sowing, perhaps. One doesn’t sow a thorn bush and expect to grow a fig tree, right?
At any rate I also believe that there is space for grace also as we parents who are reflective look back upon things. Looking backward in the present hopefully connects the present to both the future and the past.
Continuity.
Growth.
Not severed detachment.
Parenting at times can be similar to an idea I heard in a documentary by Robert McNamara who was Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam conflict. The documentary was called the Fog of War and it contained ten things that he had learned through his lifetime about War, that as an old man, was finally sharing.
The overriding theme is that in the moment on the ground in a battle it is like being in a fog. You cannot always be certain you are making the right decision as things and choices are being hurled in front of you.
I think parenting is like this also. I’ve sometimes said that “too bad our children don’t come with specific instruction books” and because they are unique people as we are also, our interactions with them, while similar to that of other children and parents, have their own unique flavors and particular challenges.
I think most parents do the best they can and have an amount of reflection as they parent.
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In terms of differentiation and my own personal development (which I think I have a pretty strong sense of my own self) it likely came from my father’s nurturing abilities and those of my village.
Probably my father’s nurturing (though he was a passive person) and values/traits were the huge counter-balance from what I encountered, daily, from my mother. It formed the safe place from which I eventually explored the world and became my own person. That says so much about the power of a father, and my father, in particular, as well as the plethora of neighbors, teachers, friends and others who impacted my life journey.
I honestly cannot recall any single conversation with my own mother that may have in any way resembled a simple basic conversation with questions such as…
…What is your favorite color?
…Do you like chocolate or vanilla better?
…What would you like to do today?
For anyone who has been formed by extreme constraints in developing one’s own self and de-personalization (being treated as an object) and serious boundary-crossing issues of many sorts, I hope that what I’m sharing may help them in some small way to better understand how they relate to God.
I can’t seem to say enough or make enough references to how much I enjoyed the first time I came across the poem God Our Mother. (words) And this, is an audio song along the same line of understanding God our Mother. (music). It is about the pathos and feminine expression of God the Father, in the Bible, and seems to bring together so many qualities, questions and issues of God’s gender.
It is both.
And we are all complicated expressions of all that God is, being made in His image.
I believe there are books dealing with the mother wound although I have never had time to pursue such books or articles. I have seen that title come across some of my readings. For me, and this is a tangent, I am perfectly comfortable considering God my Father, in terms of name. It works for me, because my own father was both. And I call him my earthly father, and God my heavenly Father.
This is My Father’s World.
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Below is a scan of the letter of commendation for a middle school writing elective I referenced early and my mother’s notations in her handwriting.
I just find this, interesting.
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