Adapting Wisdom From C. S. Lewis To Visualize God’s Plan

A New Way Of Thinking About God’s Plan And How He Sees Our Lives

 

“Why am I here?”  “What’s my purpose?”  “Does my life even have a purpose at all?”  These are profound questions we ask ourselves from time to time – especially when we’re feeling down, lost, without direction and/or in the midst of a crisis.  They are scary questions, to be sure, especially for those who don’t believe in God or sadly believe that life has no purpose.

Fortunately, those of us who believe in God know that life does, indeed, have purpose and meaning.  It’s just that the purpose and meaning of our specific lives may still be unclear.  Furthermore, we also might ask “Am I following the path God intended for me?” and/or “Am I doing what God wants me to be doing?”  These, too, are very important questions.  We might pray for clear answers from God on all of them.

At the very core is the most fundamental question: “What is God’s Plan for me?”  Answering that question will help provide answers for all the others.

 

What Is God’s Plan For Me?

Of course, this is not something that can be answered here because it’s different for every individual.  However, we can talk about what God’s Plan might look like and use that to put our lives into a broader context.  In the end, visualizing how God might see our lives as a whole can be comforting during times of trial.

 

The Wisdom of C. S. Lewis

In his book, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis captured the essence of God’s Plan using an insightful metaphor we can all understand:

“If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel [thru life], then you must picture as the whole page on which the line is drawn. We come to the parts of the line one by one: we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. God, from above or outside or all around, contains the whole line, and sees it all.”

In other words, imagine a single straight black line drawn on a piece of white paper.  We see life as if we are physically part of that line experiencing one moment at a time.  We can remember the past and experience the here-and-now but we have no way of seeing the parts of the line to come.  God’s vantage point is from above the page; He sees the whole page and the whole line of our life all at the same time.  Whereas we experience the moment and have at least some memory of our past, God sees the past, future and current moment with perfect clarity.

The Lewis paragraph is from a short section in Mere Christianity called “Time and Beyond Time”.  You can see the whole section here: http://www2.esm.vt.edu/~sdross/text/beyondtime.html.  Give it a read if you want more context on Lewis’ thinking – it’s short and written plainly so it won’t take much time.

 

Extending Lewis’ Metaphor

Lewis’ metaphor is highly insightful because it helps each of us see our life as God might see it.  It simultaneously puts our life into a broader context and also shows that God is watching over us – a comforting feeling for sure.

Let’s keep going and see if we can extend Lewis’ model to uncover more insights about God’s Plan for us.

 

God Sees The Lines For Everyone: As we dive deeper we realize what we already know: God, as all-knowing, sees all of our lives, across the span of time, all at once.  Applying that to the Lewis analogy we realize that He can see all the pages and all the lines for everyone in the world – all at the same time.  Despite what we may sometimes think, the world doesn’t revolve around us.  God is all-knowing and all-powerful enough to care about all creatures all the time.  Stop for a second, if you haven’t already done so, and imagine for yourself what this might look like to God.

 

God Sees The Lines Of Our Lives Intertwine: If God sees all of our lines all at once then He must see how those lines (and our lives) intersect, interconnect and intermingle.  For example, He must be able to see how two people’s lines come together when they find each other, become soul mates and eventually marry.  God, from His vantage point, can see that as it happens but He can also see it coming way before it happens.  God’s has a plan for each of us and He’s able to see the broad span of its entirety as well as how it relates to the plan He has for others.

 

Make The Line Float In 3 Dimensions: A more effective way to think about God’s Plan and His view of our lives is to extend Lewis’ two dimensional view of lines on a page into three dimensions.  In other words, consider pulling the lines that represent our lives off the page and float them in space so that we can see them from all angles.  Once we move into 3 dimensional (3D) space we can now envision how God might see our lives and their associated connections as lines in space coming from above, from below, from the side and all directions in between.  No longer are we limited to seeing the lines of our lives intersect on a 2D page; if we use our imagination, we can see connections and interactions coming at us all the time and from all directions.  Now we are starting to see the richness of all lives as God might see them.

 

Pause And Focus On One Person: At this stage your brain is likely trying to imagine a large set of lines intersecting from all over the place and you might be having difficulty comprehending it all.  Did extending Lewis’ analogy to 3D make everything worse?  Perhaps.  At least for us.  But God actually might see the complexity of all our lives as interwoven lines in space.  If that’s the case then all we can say is, “Holy cow, isn’t God awesome!?!?”  It’s far beyond our limited abilities to imagine in three dimensions all the lines of all people all at once across all life spans.  God, on the other hand, is amazing, indeed.

To simplify things, let’s focus on one person at a time and focus on the more meaningful connections – those that significantly impact a person’s life – not the trivial, less meaningful connections we more commonly experience every day.  Think about the line representing your life and then add in lines representing your meaningful connections with others – your joys and trials, the good and possibly (likely?) the bad.

 

Personal Interactions Have Impact On Our Lives: As the lines of our lives intertwine, God must be able to see the impacts others have on our lives.  Connecting with others, represented by intersecting lines, can result in life impacts that are significant, fleeting and everywhere in between. And those impacts can be good for us and bad.

We experience normal connections every day at the coffee shop, grocery store and work environment but some connections, like finding a soul mate, dramatically change the course of our lives.  Furthermore, our interactions can impact the life of someone we know or love – or impact the life of a stranger – or indirectly impact the life of someone else unbeknownst to us – or the life of someone yet to come – or even the lives of many people yet to come.  This is analogous to “the butterfly effect” – a metaphor that hypothesizes the gentle flap of a butterfly wing can potentially cause a tornado to occur elsewhere.  It’s also like the ripple effect that Dr. Turek discussed in a previous article.

 

Events Impact Our Lives Too: We also have to keep in mind God sees the impact on our lives caused by events in addition to those caused by interactions with others.  Events like getting a raise, moving into a new house or experiencing tragedy from a natural disaster all have impact on our lives.  And, just like personal interactions, events can have impacts large, small and everywhere in-between.  We can think about representing these events in our 3D model as more intersecting lines, perhaps shortened to reflect their finite nature.  Or perhaps colored differently.  How do you imagine the significant events in your mental model?  Are they different somehow from significant connections with others?

 

Allowing Our Lines To Bend and Twist: Now consider that the line representing God’s Plan for you can twist and bend based on the impact from events or connections with others. For instance, when soul mates come together, their lives are significantly impacted –  represented as some meaningful bends in the lines representing their lives.  By convention, we’ll imagine positive impacts cause our lines to bend upward while harmful or sad impacts bend our lines downward.

Other connections or events can introduce uncertainty or instability that might be represented with a bend to the side.  More uncertainty or instability might be represented with multiple bends left and right like a zigzag.  Or up and down.  Connections that cause a great deal of volatility, insecurity or craziness might be represented with a spiral or loop; tumultuous success with a spiral aiming upward at some angle.

Some connections can completely change the course of our lives (e.g., major bends in the line) while others are mere glancing blows (e.g., a line that bounces off our line).  Some lines can start a new person (e.g., having a baby) while others, sadly, can end with a tragic event (e.g., terrible auto accident).  Think again about your own life and imagine how your line bends and twists as it connects with others and/or experiences various meaningful events.  Also consider how the lines of others have been impacted by you.  And think about the lives of others and how events and personal interactions have impacted them.

 

God Shapes Your Plan To Fit His Broader Plan: God’s Plan for you is part of His broader plan for all.  God sees your life, all the choices you make, all the people you connect with and all the events that affect you.  But God also interjects events, people and outcomes so that your life aligns with His broader plan for others, for the world and for the entire universe.  God guides us through important interactions and events, influences our steps through life and answers our prayers as they support His plan for us.  Imagine how those events, connections and outcomes are represented in your mental model.  What do they look like?  Also consider how they impact the line that represents your life.

 

Finally, step back and think about how God sees our interwoven lives, their connections and their impactful events.  Reflecting on God’s perspective of our lives can help us keep low periods and times of crisis in perspective.  Just knowing that God is there, that He has a plan for us, that our lives have purpose and that our lives are aligned with His plan for the entire universe should all be highly comforting – especially during times of trial.  Seek God’s guidance through prayer and when making choices.  Ask Him to guide you so that you stay aligned with His plan for you.