Many Christians Are Fatalists

“And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

Why did God promise this? Simply, because He wanted to. We can’t force God to do something He doesn’t want too. When He makes a promise, it’s because it pleases Him to do so.

Israel spent forty years trapped in the desert. Why? Because they were fatalist. “Why is this happening to me? Where’s God? It’s not going to work out! It’s better back in Egypt!,” was there complaint. And that’s where they stayed and died: in the wilderness.

Did God lead them into the wilderness? Yep! But it wasn’t His intention to leave them there. His intention was to test their hearts, build their character, and prepare them for what was to come. God had made promise to lead them into the promised land. But God couldn’t get them to cooperate. We have to cooperate with God. How do we cooperate? By the obedience of faith. It would have been appropriate to give God thanks for delivering them from Egypt, for blessing them as they traveled through the desert, and giving them the promised land. But complaining, instead of praising, put the stop on their progress.

Jesus said, “Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth” (Revelation 3:10). We have been commanded to “persevere” in hardship. But He promises to see us through. Did God create the hardship? No, but tribulation and persecution is in the world. It entered by sin, and God hasn’t created the new heavens and earth yet (in case you haven’t noticed). The day will come when the cares of this life will be gone, but for now we have to persevere.

“Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son Of God, let us hold fast out confession” (Hebrews 4:14). He didn’t say, “Hold fast your fatalism.”

As we grows spiritually, we begin to recognize the blessing of God wherever we find ourselves. We begin to know the ways of God, how to cooperate with Him, and not just look for Him to act: “He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel” (Psalm 103:7). So many want to see God act, to do a miracle for them, but few have learned His ways. If Moses didn’t have an understanding of the ways of God, Israel wouldn’t have seen God’s acts.

Jesus faced the same issues: “Now He [Jesus] could do know mighty works there” (Mark 6:5). The scripture doesn’t say, “He would not,” but “He could not.” Why couldn’t He? “He marveled because of their unbelief” (Mark 6:6). Those folks didn’t know how to cooperate with Jesus and failed to receive the promise.

If our belief about God is fatalistic, we can’t cooperate with Him and are going to stay in the wilderness longer than we need. God’s plan is for us to agree with Him, and believe His word so that He can get us through the wilderness. There’s joy and hope in believing and fear and torment in a fatalistic attitude.