Last week, I read Understanding God’s Will: How to Hack the Equation without Formulas by Kyle Lake and for the most part I liked it. Although it has been on my every expanding “to read” pile on my bookshelf, I read it mainly because I was preaching on God’s Will and I found it was helpful in many ways as I was formulating my thoughts and ideas. Although there wasn’t anything really new in the book for me, it is rather well written and he is very good at relaying his thoughts with an effective and humorous use of sarcasm. The book would be great for those who have grown up in the church and have been indoctrinated with a very formulaic (modern) view of God’s will and want to read a basic but well-written critique of that view with a simple presentation of an alternative view. If however, you are already versed in different views of God’s will, specifically the difference between modern and postmodern views, than this book may be simple review.

In terms of sparking my thinking, I really liked the following quote as it resonated with me and sparked further reflection:

“The very nature of formulas [relating to the will of God like a recipe formula] collides head-on with the ways of God, because formulas are about control, predictability, and certainty.” page 8.

I think there are so many things we like to control about God, whether that is through understanding his will, our prayer lives, our hermeneutical (interpretation of scripture) practices, or our theology. The problem is I don’t think you can ever put God in the proverbial box and when we do, it only presents itself with problems. I also wonder how much of our current theological practices go back to the birth of the scientific method in which one presents a theory (hypothesis) and then tries to prove that theory with empirical, observable and scientific evidence. Although that may work for science, does it work for theology and can we ever understand God like the created natural world through a formula or a system? Maybe you can get a glimpse of the creator by his creation much like you can begin to understand an artist by their art, but how far do you take that? As usually, I don’t have answers, just questions but these are important question and ones I find filling more and more of my thoughts these days.

Before I end this post, I wanted to say that it is deeply saddening that Kyle is no longer with us – he tragically died recently. I never knew Kyle or heard of him before his death, but I have to admit his death had an impact on me. I think it is primarily because he would be about the same age as me, with a family (including twins) that are the same age as mine. He seemed like an amazing man, husband, father, pastor, leader, author and speaker that I wish I could have gotten to know – even if it was just through more of his published works.