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| A picture of a 周瑜, an ancient Chinese general, who has for some reason been labelled with the English name "Joey" in this image. Image source. (If you can read Chinese, this page is HILARIOUS.) |
So here's a little story about how American evangelical Christians believe in "listening to God" and God giving them indications about what to do:
About 10 years ago, I was traveling in China by myself. In one city I traveled to, I met up with 3 friends: one American (Daniel) and two Chinese (Lily and Xie).
Daniel was a Christian, a white dude with the same evangelical background as me, teaching English at a university in China, probably for missionary sorts of reasons. Lily was a Christian- and, actually, I say her name was Lily because that's what she originally told me when I first met her a year or two before, but when I saw her on this trip, she told me that she didn't want to use her English name anymore. She wanted to be called by her Chinese name, Tingting. And Xie was not a Christian, but he knew the rest of us were.
Daniel and Tingting spent a lot of time together, and Daniel was having a hard time remembering that he should call her Tingting instead of Lily.
Anyway, the three of us had a good time together, and in the evening it was time for me to go back to another friend's apartment, where I was staying. But they were all very concerned about me going back alone, at night, without a phone. What if I got lost and needed help, or something?
I didn't have a phone with me on this trip. Or rather, I had an American cell phone, but it couldn't make calls in China. This was back when cell phones were common enough that my friends viewed a phone as important for my safety, but not like nowadays where it's unheard-of that someone our age doesn't have a phone.
Anyway, I reassured them all that I would be fine, without a phone. They were still worried, and tried to come up with solutions. Perhaps one of them would come with me and make sure I got there safely. Perhaps they could find an extra phone that I could borrow.
Eventually we all stood in a circle and prayed about it. (Xie was included in our circle even though he wasn't a Christian.)
So we prayed "God tell us what to do" and all that, and then when our prayer was done, Daniel announced, "I just heard, 'Lily, go.'" Seemingly, it meant that God wanted Lily to go with me and make sure I got home safely. (Except that she wants to be called Tingting- we'll get to that in a minute.)
We didn't end up doing that though- and honestly, I wonder if it was because there was a bit of a language barrier there. Tingting and Xie could speak English just fine, but just think about how much American evangelical jargon you have to understand to make sense of the sentence "I just heard Lily go." You need to have these background assumptions:
- When we pray and ask God what to do, God may give us an answer
- Sometimes that answer is in the form of a random thought that pops into your head, and you don't know where it came from
- So "Lily go" popped into Daniel's head, and it could be a message from God
- Hmm it's just a vague 2-word message, how will we interpret it? I guess Lily should go with Perfect Number and make sure she gets home?
But we didn't do that- what actually ended up happening was that Xie's roommate had an old cell phone, and I borrowed it, and had no problems getting home. The end~
Okay, so, this is a thing that happened to me, about 10 years ago, and this one little part has ALWAYS bothered me: Why did God call her Lily instead of Tingting?
Like, I don't even believe in "God speaks to you by making odd thoughts pop into your head" any more, and it STILL bothers me.
Let's try to break this down and analyze it:
Suppose God wants to tell us the solution to our problem is that Tingting should come with me to make sure I got home safe. Okay, so let's imagine this as an abstract concept, that we haven't put into words yet. Just the concept of her and me going back to my other friend's apartment together- don't describe it in any words yet, just kind of picture it in your mind. Right? If this is the answer from God, then initially it wouldn't be in any human language; it would just be this idea in God's mind. God's native language isn't English or Mandarin Chinese or any human language.
And indeed, I have heard examples of American evangelical Christians getting messages from God (ie, random thoughts that just popped into their head) that weren't words; they were images. So, yes, that's also a thing that they believe, that I used to believe.
But, to communicate it to Daniel, God put it in English. But wait a minute, is it... like, how God would say it in English, or how Daniel would say it in English? Because, surely God would call Tingting by the name she wanted to be called by. Right? Oh my, unless this whole thing actually means that God believes Tingting's desire to be called Tingting is wrong, and God refuses, and calls her Lily instead- wow, that's mean. Like at least Daniel was trying to call her Tingting, but just couldn't break the habit of calling her Lily. What's God's excuse?
Is it like, God has this *idea*, and then as it passes into Daniel's brain, it gets filtered into the way Daniel speaks English, including his bad habit of calling Tingting by the wrong name, and then that's what Daniel hears as the random thought that pops into his head? Is that how it works?
But... I'm not sure that makes sense either. If the filter from "God's idea" to "random thought in Daniel's head" is in Daniel's brain, they why doesn't Daniel have access to it? I've experienced this myself- praying for God to give me an answer, and then having a thought in my head- but it's words, and they leave room for interpretation. There's no sense that "here's a larger concept, and here are words to describe it"- no, all you get is the words, and they don't always make sense, and you have to try to figure out what God meant. What Daniel heard was "Lily go" and it was up to him to figure out what that meant. If God had given him a whole *idea* and then his brain filtered it into the words that Daniel typically used, then wouldn't Daniel also have an awareness of the *idea* and wouldn't need to wonder how to interpret the words?
Or is God limited to only using words that Daniel himself would use in his own speech and thoughts? God wants to have the thought "Tingting go" pop into Daniel's head, but the neural pathways in Daniel's brain resist the idea of referring to Tingting as Tingting. Daniel just doesn't think of her as Tingting, and so it's extremely difficult, or maybe even impossible, for God to make Daniel hear the words "Tingting go" in his brain.
HOW DOES IT WORK???????
This still bothers me! I don't even believe in it any more and it still bothers me! Why did God call her the wrong name???
If you're curious, the main reason I don't believe in this "random thoughts in your head could totally be God trying to tell you something" is because it's terrible for people who are prone to anxiety, like me. When you have anxiety, it means you often have random thoughts pop into your head, about possible dangers lurking. And then, if you believe there is a possibility that random thoughts could be messages from God, you have to focus on these anxiety-inducing thoughts and carefully analyze them, to decide if a thought is really from God and you need to take it SUPER SERIOUSLY because you could LITERALLY DIE if you don't heed the warning, or if it's just your mind being weird and you need to ignore it and calm down.
Seriously, things are A LOT better for me now, in terms of having anxiety, now that I no longer believe that I'm required to pay attention to every doomsday scenario that crosses my mind, because it will be MY FAULT if I ignore it and it turns out it was God trying to tell me something and then some horrible tragedy happens.
Like, oh my god, I am SO GLAD I stopped believing that WAYYY before my kid was born. It would be just AWFUL, being a parent and believing that. As a mom, I'm always aware of possible dangers to my kid, and aware of the fact that sometimes children die, and that's terrible. I think about it a lot- my son has no idea; he just lives his happy life, while I check the childproof locks on the windows and drain the water from the bathtub immediately when he's done with it.
Can you imagine, how awful it would be, believing that all these thoughts that run through the back of my mind, as a parent, about potential dangers to my child, were actual real things that were really about to happen and my son could actually die and God was trying to tell me and I need to go get him RIGHT NOW and make sure he's safe?
Anyway...
Yeah so anyway, that anxiety stuff is why I don't believe God speaks to people in that way. (Also, what if you had a random thought that was, oh I don't know, just to make up a completely hypothetical example, "take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and sacrifice him as a burnt offering?" We wouldn't want anyone to think something like that was really from God, obviously.)
So yeah, in reality, I think Daniel just had a random thought, and it wasn't from God. But I have always wondered, if it was from God, well, how does that work? Why would it use the wrong name for Tingting? Do messages from God also contain the hearer's own flawed patterns of thinking? Doesn't this call the whole "a random thought is a message from God" thing into question?
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Related:
I'm SO HAPPY I Won't Be Praying During Childbirth
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