Coherent Randomness

 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well…All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be (Psalm 139:  14, 16).

Now I have had most of the life I am going to have, and I can see what it has been.  I can remember those early years when it seemed to me I was cut completely adrift, and times when, looking back at earlier times, it seemed I had been wandering in the dark woods of error.  But now it looks to me as though I was following a path that was laid out for me, unbroken, and maybe even as straight as possible, from one end to the other, and I have this feeling, which never leaves me anymore, that I have been led  (the elderly narrator in the novel Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry, p. 66, emphasis his). 

                                   

Does your life ever feel random – like a series of disconnected dots that just won’t join together? 

I imagine that David’s life felt that way at times. 

I don’t know how old David was when he composed Psalm 139.  I like to imagine him singing this as one of his “golden oldies” during his final year of life.  At that point, his life included the following episodes:

·         Samuel anointed him king when he was a teenager, the youngest in his family.

·         He killed the Philistine giant Goliath while he was not yet old enough to serve in the army. 

·         He was summoned to King Saul’s court as a musician to soothe the king’s struggle with an evil spirit. 

·         The jealous King Saul spent several years trying to kill him.

·         David took over the kingdom from Saul. 

·         His son Absalom tried to kill him and take over the throne.

·         After one of his sons raped his half-sister, David neglected to deal with it properly.

·         He had sex with his neighbour’s wife Bathsheba, and then had her husband killed when he learned that she was pregnant.

·         He is the Bible’s most prolific and best known worship-song composer.

These random episodes (and many more) are given coherence through “God’s book” that David refers to in the verses above.  And Jayber Crow, like David, sees the randomness of his life cohering through a profound sense of being led by the Lord’s faithfulness. 

How about you?  Take a minute and ponder a brief bullet list of your most significant life experiences:  strong relationships, broken relationships, successes, failures, blessings, tragedies, disappointments, struggles, dreams and hopes. 

Do they feel random?  Confusing?  Encouraging?

Somewhere inside the randomness all the bits are being held together by the Lord Jesus who promised to be with us to the very end of the age (Matt. 28: 20).  Some days we boldly declare with David and Jayber Crow that we see it clearly.  On other days we’re blinded and we need their testimony to trust that it is also true for us.  Either way, it’s one of the deepest truths we’re grounded in as we begin another week.