Inevitability Paralysis or Power?

Perhaps more than any other religious group Seventh-day Adventists are inspired by a concept of inevitability in their work—in­evitable vindication, inevitable victory.

HOWARD B. WEEKS, Secretary, General Conference Public Relations Department

Perhaps more than any other religious group Seventh-day Adventists are inspired by a concept of inevitability in their work—in­evitable vindication, inevitable victory.

In some ways this concept can serve as a driv­ing force. It can give us a sense of purpose. In other ways it can virtually immobilize us.

The hope we keep ever before us is that of a work completed. We speak encouragingly to one another that victory is near. Yet at the same time we often tell ourselves that the work we are actually doing is hardly calculated to achieve that goal.

This great gap between present reality and future hope we fill all too easily, not with vigor­ous deeds but with the soothing balm of inevitability.

We lift up our eyes from the work at hand to the infinitely vast, unfinished task. Then at this point we often slip a mental clutch, refusing to let this challenging vista fully engage our minds. There is a way of escape.

We can say, "Well, the Lord has a thousand ways." Or, "He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness."

We read in a church paper of the few workers in a given field and the impossible task con­fronting them. But this will not disturb the comfort of our trust in the "inevitable." At the close of the article we read that we should "pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth reapers." We turn the page and go on to something else—reassured, secure, inactive.

Such thoughts can be sound encouragement, of course, as we address ourselves to the task at hand. In reality they are often a deadly paralysis.

Not some inevitable fate draws men to suc­cess in their endeavors. It is right action, moti­vated by the right spirit.

Much of the clutter along the roadway of history consists of broken monuments to move­ments fated to succeed, whose triumph was inevitable.

One example is the touted ascendency of the Aryan people, destined to become the world's master race. Hitler plunged into grandiose plans. The inevitable in which he trusted proved to be on the other side.

In recent years Americans have been jolted from a complacent assumption that fairness and freedom will inevitably produce superior prod­ucts, that people will inevitably choose freedom to state regulation, that America will inevitably be understood by other peoples if the story is only told.

But while Americans have slept, others have stolen many a march. It has been discovered anew that inevitability is on the side of energy, wisely applied.

We could review the miserable history of Israel as perhaps the prize example of them all. Here were God's chosen people. The glory of the Lord was to shine upon them. They were to ride upon the high places of the earth. Jeru­salem would be made a praise in the earth. It was inevitable. It was in the Book. Had this in­evitability materialized, God's work in the earth might long since have been finished.

We can now, from our vantage place in time, sagely point out that their error was in relishing the vision of the reward without performing the deeds upon which it was contingent. As things turned out, the prophecies have been proved to be conditional.

God's prophetic power is not simply a remark­able facility with magic potions. It is a divine omniscience that sees all of the mosaic of events, pointing out that these things will occur as these things do, that if these influences are brought to bear, this can be made to happen at this point. Seldom is it the prediction of events beyond control or change.

Mrs. White has said that had we done what we should have done and been what we should have been, we would have been walking the streets of gold ere this.

God is not bound by a fixed timetable, com­pelled to bring us to success—our only requisite being a power of endurance. God works not with rigid formulas but with living souls. When He cuts His work short in righteousness, it will not be with some system of heavenly loud-speakers or other phenomena in which we may be trusting, but rather through human beings who have asked for and have received and are using divine wisdom, initiative, and courage.

If we accept the promises of God as capable of fulfillment, we must also accept the corollary that those promises are contingent upon the action of God's people. We must believe that we can be dedicated enough; we must believe that by God's grace we can initiate actions bold enough, large enough—equal to the result we desire.

We must fill the gap between where we are now and where we want to be, not with the reveries of hope but with our own hands, brains, and lives dedicated to a task that must be performed. We should not concern ourselves so much about generations past or those who in God's wisdom may yet come, but rather realize that at this moment we are God's men and be­lieve that what He has us to do He has provided the means to do, and that it will not be accom­plished until there arise a people willing to do it.

Let us lay hold upon the means God has pro­vided in this generation. Let us utilize every medium, every science, every resource, every power of research and communications. Let us not presume that we have art impossible task, but let us gratefully use the tools placed in our hands to complete it.

We must first of all, of course, be certain of our personal faith in the message, and its rel­evance to the world in which we live.

We must do more planning of a long-range nature, not limiting our efforts to those projects with promise of immediate results. It is not a denial of faith to institute plans, local or worldwide, that will bear fruit only in ten or even twenty years. It is an absolute necessity if we are to gain the momentum that would be needed at that time.

We must work more specifically and not al­ways generally. We must address ourselves in a precise way to definite groups, areas, and in­dividuals rather than constantly to present the same message to the same people, imagining we are reaching "the public."

We must establish more lines of personal con­tact through which we can reach the people otherwise beyond our range and through which we can have an objective appraisal of our efforts.

Some ventures may prove impractical. But this fear should not cause us to draw back from imaginative planning. We may believe in be­ing practical, concentrating on the events im­mediately at hand. But we may also believe in the ivory tower from which the mind can soar beyond events and establish new anchor points to which events themselves can be drawn.

Let us reaffirm our belief in God's promises of victory in our work, of the coming of our Lord, of the renewing of the world. But under-girding all of these, let us grasp the basic promise—that He will give us the strength, the faith, and the wisdom to plan, to work, and to live, that those promises may be the realities we so much want them to be.


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HOWARD B. WEEKS, Secretary, General Conference Public Relations Department

August 1959

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