By "presumptions" I include the connotation of presumptiousness.
The first is to constantly be reading everything in one's life, often trivial, as a sign from God. While I would never deny that there are times when we need to see and hear the voice and hand of God in our lives, there is a danger of substituting "signs" for character growth and maturity. By reading the signs sometimes we avoid making hard choices with uncertain outcomes. While the New Testament does have its share of miracles, the point of most being to authenticate the unique appearance of the Son of God in the world and the message proclaimed by His apostles, the New Testament does not so much emphasize reading tea leaves of the Spirit as it does growing in character and spiritual maturity through the hardships that Christians suffer.
There is a special danger when someone claims to tell us what God has said to them in such a way that we are supposed to heed their words as if they are the words of God themselves. Paul warns the Corinthians to carefully test such utterances and emphasizes that the thoughts of the mind are of far more weight than ecstatic utterances. Emphasizing flamboyant or special revelations at the expense of the mind is the province of charlatans. The safest yardstick is to measure all things by the words which God HAS spoken through Jesus Christ and authenticated through his apostles (Hebrews 2:1-3) and to judge and apply them using the mind.
I find the distinction between providence and miracle helpful. Providence is the outworking of God's purposes through events and circumstances throughout history. We live in that stream of history, and so we are called to understand what God is doing in our world and our lives by getting more familiar with Him and His ways and living accordingly. Miracle is when God overrides the normal workings of physics and history either to affect its course or to draw special attention to some revelation.
Is the birth of a baby a miracle? Sure, in one sense. That next breath you breathe is a miracle too. All of life and creation is a miracle, but our world and our lives are fashioned in such a way that it normally follows a rational course where cause and effect can be studied according to operative laws and principles. That is the basis of science. But the term miracle in this case has a special use where it points to the larger purposes and plans of God as specially revealed by Him at special moments in history as recorded in the Bible.
A word on prayer. It has two important aspects, well probably more, but two that are relevant here. First, the outpouring of one's heart to God our Father in requests for guidance, aid and comfort, confession, thanksgiving and praise. Second, the offering up of ourselves to God to be transformed from selfish, rebellious sinners to servants of Christ. The New Testament has plenty of examples of both, but being the selfish people that we are we focus primarily on the requests. To the degree that we inordinately focus on God doing what we want him to do we have missed the whole point. Prayer is not the opporunity for us to manipulate the Almighty. It is the opportunity for us to be transformed by him. He stoops to our need, knowing that life on this earth gives rise to requests, the need for comfort and aid, etc. But the point is not so much for us to be comfortable and get what we want. It is for us to want to please him instead of ourselves. Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane is instructive here.
Whew! This is going on and on.
Now to the second presumption. That is to arrogate to oneself the authority to declare the absence of God and the spiritual world. As Lewis and others have pointed out, to make such a claim is to declare oneself to be God, the very thing that is denied. I personally believe that God has built into his universe such contradictions so that for men who deny God, "professing themselves to be wise they became fools." At least that's how Paul put it in Romans chapter one. No matter how passionately men pound their fists and their sledgehammers against the rock that is God, they and their tools will be broken and God will remain. The same is true of His Word. The grass withers and fades, but the Word of God remains forever, according to Isaiah.
I have said all of this to lay groundwork for addressing the question of God and human endeavors such as football players and teams. In my book what happens on the football field carries the potential for miracle only in the same sense that the birth of a baby is a miracle, but not miracle in the sense of a suspension of that normal providence of God that operates within the laws of physics. Players, coaches, fans, etc. can pray, but in my opinion praying that God would help them win by some angelic tip of a pass or some sudden supernatural skill is misguided. Pray instead that you would play in such a way as to compete well and to the glory of God. Ask God for strength, endurance, courage, and clarity, but train for them as well. Prepare for it through your whole life. Think of Olympic runner Eric as portrayed in the movie Chariots of Fire as an example.
It may be that God shows through his providence that all these things come together to produce what looks like an improbably victory. Sports are usually games of inches. I do not believe in luck. I see the hand of God in both miracles AND providence. Me, I see the glory of God and of His Son Jesus Christ in the smallest of things, as Jesus said in the Sermon On The Mount when he said not one sparrow falls to the ground but that our Father in heaven knows it.
Tea leaf readers will say, "But God gave me a premonition to move into another lane just before a fatal accident occurred there." It is not my place to challenge whether your experience was a miracle from God. I applaud you for looking at life in such a way that you depend on the care and protection of God. That is a good thing. But ponder also that the OTHER guy was not so blessed with the avoidance of an accident. There are countless examples in history where God in his providence spared people in ways that seem miraculous. But there are just as many examples of people who were not spared, faithful people of God who suffered horribly.
All this should give us pause. Consider the awesome power of God who is cast in the role of Potter (in Romans chapter 9) while we are the Clay. We have no claim over our Creator to challenge his authority to spare some and not others.
The upshot for me is that God is not the Grand Lever In The Sky that we can pull when we wish to get our team to win a ball game. God is the Sanctifier of Sinners who desires us to be more like His Son Jesus Christ, and gives His people life and salvation as a means to accomplish that.
What's cool is that he also allows us to enjoy sports while we do so.
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