The title of this blog is particularly relevant for me today because my youngest granddaughter is coming to stay and next week my wife and I will be helping to look after our oldest son’s children. But it’s not literal babies that I have in mind as I write.

I am concerned about the figurative baby at the centre of my faith. The “baby” that is – my understanding of who God is and what He is like.

I recently went to the funeral of a young Christian worker who had died in his mid thirties. After the service someone

in the row in front, a key member of the church to which the worker had belonged, turned round and started talking to the people sitting to my left who had worked with the person who had died. The grief of the person beside me was evident.

I was stunned by what was said, the thrust of it was “It was all in ‘the plan’, it must be for the best.” I could not believe what I was hearing but said nothing until the person speaking had finished and moved on. I then turned to the person sitting on my left and said “I don’t believe that. Do you?

I don’t see from the Bible God being so arbitrary or uncaring as to take a young man’s life as though he were a pawn in a chess game, but if you look at the words of some hymns or worship songs you could be forgiven for thinking that was the case. Take for example ‘All is Well’ from Robin Mark’s album The Year of Grace, it says

He makes us rich and poor
That we might trust Him more
Whatever is His way all is well

All my changes come from Him He who never changes
I’m held firm in the grasp of the Rock of all the ages

All is well with my soul
He is God in control
I know not all His plans
But I know I’m in His hands

He clothes us now then strips us
Yet with His Word equips us
Whatever is His way all is well

And though our seasons change
We still exalt His name
Whatever is His way all is well

The implication is that whatever happens in my life is what God planned for me. It seems to me that this is also the underlying theme of many Christian books that suggest that I am exactly as God wanted (planned) me to be. So in this view God planned one girl to have anorexia, and another to have leukaemia and so on.

So what does the Bible have to say about such a view of God?

This was originally posted in 2011 and is part of reconstructing my blog archive