We don't have to be Pollyanna to avoid being cynical, yet it disturbs me to see the number of people who overly spiritualize the ordinary happenings of their lives. I developed a friend who accumulated real estate during the boom. He would tell me in great detail how God personally worked out the details of a deal just for him. When the Texas market became "sick unto death," he told me how God worked to personally rescue him, but with heavy losses. I doubt that the God of the universe failed to see the downturn in Texas real estate.
I was flying seated next to a lady who had moved from Houston to Denver. When I asked her how she handled the snow she said, "I just turn it over to the Lord and let him drive." If possible, I'm going to stay off the street the day she does that. She told me how she slid up on the sidewalk just a few times during the winter. Did the Lord glance away?
After speaking at the Reformed Seminary one of the students said to me, "God's got me right where He wants me." When I asked where that was he said, "broke." I told him I have a son and I would feel very depressed if he said that I had him right where I wanted him when he was broke. I don't really see that as the proper image of a heavenly father.
Recently I spent the morning with the president and owner of a successful manufacturing corporation. He is both devout and charismatic. As we walked over his facility he told me how the Lord had protected him from unionizing efforts. He happened to be in an area of my expertise, for I had been in over a hundred union elections, representing management. Everything he said he did was right on, and I'm convinced that anybody, who treated his employees as well as he did whether Christian or non-Christian, would have won the election. Sometimes I think we spiritualize because we are afraid that unless we do, God will get upset with us and retaliate by sending more serious trouble. It becomes a superstition rather than objective praise.
Another friend, who lost a son in an accident, received a lot of attention from the Christian community and I gave him a letter suggesting that he grieve and not be pushed to immediately celebrate, for certainly if I had lost I would grieve. We can't spiritualize away the effect of death. I see a professional baseball player on TV crossing himself every time before his hitting turn. What if the pitcher also crossed himself - who would win? Does the religious ritual invoke God's special favor?
A lawyer came to see me five years after he had become a Christian and said, "God is disciplining me. I became a Christian and decided to make my practice of law a ministry rather than a profession and so I have been letting Christians pay me what they felt I was worth." I replied, "you're broke, aren't you?" He said, "yes," with a certain amount of surprise, and I told him the Lord wasn't disciplining him, he was suffering the consequences of stupidity. Then I gave him $2500 to pay his bills, after which he went back into the practice of law as a profession very successfully. He had spiritualized where he should not.
I believe problems should be analyzed and if there is no difference in what happens to the Christian and non-Christian, I don't believe we should spiritualize it but accept cause and effect. While I do not think the problem should be spiritualized, I'm going to surprise you and say I do feel the answer should be.
The key to spiritualizing correctly is to let faith do four things:
(l) Create a positive environment in which you feel the problem can be solved. I have never solved a problem that I didn't think I could solve.
(2) Faith gives us concentration, and we can't reach our potential until we can concentrate.
(3) Faith gives us energy, for it is so much easier to work with a problem you feel you can solve than one you can't solve,
(4) Faith affects our attitude. It lets us accept winning or losing with equilibrium after we have done our best.
A friend facing bankruptcy went to his pastor asking for prayer. Before the pastor would pray he said, " you've got to promise me that you will tell God you won't be mad at Him whether you are spared this bankruptcy or not." My friend said when he really, truthfully, confessed that to God he began to grow spiritually. He said he felt divine help in the meeting with the bankers.
This is what I mean by spiritualizing the answer. It is bringing into our solutions the divine help, which is available to us, not asking for miracles but asking for the divine presence in the process.
