“It Doesn’t Really Matter What We Do”

What it Doesn’t Mean that God is in Control, Part IV

When we embarked on the journey of starting Fall Creek Abbey, I felt convinced that it was a dream that God and I had conspired together. And I was all in! The trouble was that we faced a few significant hurdles, the first being the need to sell our house during the recession (when there were a gazillion other houses similar to ours on the market) in order to purchase a suitable home for an urban retreat house.

I have to be honest, the amount of time (8 months to be exact) and the volume of work to sell our house (72 showings!) were exhausting and confusing. It was agonizing to hold this dream so close to my heart, a dream I believed was God-inspired, and watch it falter. Of course, hindsight allows me to see now the work that needed to happen in me through this formidable process of both waiting on God and staying engaged in the work necessary to realize this dream.

When it was all said and done, our house sold. In fact, we received two offers on the same day, and the second was a full-price offer! This life story will forever be for me a reminder of what it feels and looks like to collaborate with God to bring about a good and promising future. While David and I recognized God’s involvement in this arduous process, it’s also apparent that we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for our own perseverance and deliberate efforts to participate with God in this endeavor! 

The topic for Part IV in my series, “What it Doesn’t Mean that God is in Control,” is really about how we perceive the future—how things come to be. Is it settled and unalterable because God predetermines and accomplishes, unaided, everything that happens? In other words, it really doesn’t matter what we do because “God is in control.”? Or is the future open to possibilities and different outcomes based on how or whether we cooperate?

The idea that it doesn’t matter what we do because, after all, “God’s in control,” is a phrase I’ve heard spouted a lot recently. In fact, just a few months ago, I witnessed a woman shrug her shoulders and say those exact words on the heels of telling us some bizarre reasons why she supported Trump. Her attitude suggested a sort of laissez-faire outlook that what I do is really of no consequence to the future. “What will be will be because God will triumph!” There are at least two features of this way of thinking that trouble me.

It troubles me that many Christians don’t think their thoughts, words, and actions actually matter to the big picture of God’s plans for civilization. Folks who think this way imagine a God who is omnipotent and can and will singlehandedly accomplish whatever this God desires. These same people who seem to envision God as wholly sovereign are also more likely to applaud human leaders who exercise this same kind of power. “Might makes right” is their motto because it’s their God’s motto.

It also troubles me that this God (who’s all-powerful and in control) is believed to act independently to accomplish what this God wants. That’s tragic! Just think of all the creative initiatives and good work that God desires to do being sabotaged by our non-participation. I know one thing for sure: Fall Creek Abbey wouldn’t exist! So many God-inspired acts of love will be eliminated from the future, not to mention the evil injustices that will be carried out, if we refuse to cooperate with God because we think, unconsciously or consciously, that God doesn’t need us to participate!

A scripture that was important to me during the season when I was incubating the dream of Fall Creek Abbey, and certainly during the 8 months when it felt as though it was waning, was Ephesians 2:10: “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” The Greek word used for “what he has made us” is the word poema. That word inspired me to consider how God might be writing poetry through me. It compelled me to persevere because my collaboration was essential for this good work to flourish!

Tom Oord, one of the theologians and writers I’ve been reading this summer, describes this kind of power and partnership through a word he coined: amipotent. Ami is from the Latin root word for love, as in amicable or amity. Potent is from the Latin root for power or influence, as in potential and potency. “Amipotence,” Oord argues, “is maximal power in the service of love.” Now that’s the kind of poetry—power in the service of love—that can heal us and our fractured world!

It seems that the Church is at a crossroads, at least in our country. We will either take the path of participating with God in the service of love, establishing justice and mercy  in our social systems, or we will opt out. We will either support those who lead with amipotence or applaud and contribute to power that resembles autocracy as exemplified in Christian nationalism. We will either become God’s poetry or God’s verdict, a judgment of our failure to live up to our calling.

So, how do you think about the future? How do you imagine God’s agency and love expressed through you? How do you understand the impact of your own response and involvement? Consider these words of Teresa of Avila, words that capture the poetry God longs to write through you and me, and why our collaboration with God in this present moment is so critical. It’s how God does God’s work to bring about a future and a hope!

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Teresa of Avila (16th century)

Your poetry-loving friend, Beth Booram

The Lily Pad, August 17, 2025