Say More: At Last She Writes It

No. 16 | May 2024

photo by Cynthia Winward

Is God My Senator? 

By Rhiannon

I gave a talk in church recently. It was about grace and the pitfalls of viewing God's love and blessings as a transaction or business deal. Here is a quote I shared and it gives a general idea of what I spoke about: 

“What bothers me about God things is that they remind me of the cosmic lottery—that sobering dichotomy between the world’s rich and the world’s poor, between the lucky and the unlucky—which has always been a sticking point between God and I. 

If God’s goodness is qualified by how much stuff he gives out, I reason, then he’s not especially good. He might be good to that family who caught their flight and made it to the wedding on time, but he’s not especially good to an orphan in India who just lost both his parents to AIDS. 

Maybe the problem lies not in God’s goodness but in how we measure it.”

—Rachel Held Evans, Faith Unraveled 

My talk was followed by a high councilor. He began by sharing a story about skiing with his kids and extended family: in-laws, nieces, and nephews. His son loses his white-colored ski in the white snow. After several frustrating moments, they all pray asking for divine help in the procurement of this ski. The man speaking confesses that he is about ready to give up, head down the mountain, and rent a pair of skis, and then at the last moment, his son finds the ski. All is well. 

The speaker attributes the discovery of the ski to God and the collective faith of his family on the mountain that day. 

The high councilor then goes into comparing this to “Faith in Multitudes” and that the stake president would like everyone to fast, on the next fast and testimony Sunday, for missionary opportunities. His point is, if we fast together collectively we can work together to find missionary work. 

I was a little baffled; did I not just speak about the problem with “God Things?” The love of our heavenly parents is not a machine, where we put in obedience and fasting and out comes blessings and qualified worthiness.