Doing the Right Thing vs Making the Right Thing Happen

Wayne Muller makes a distinction between “doing the right thing” and “making the right thing happen.” When I first heard Wayne make this distinction, it confused me. Those things are different? Yes. Yes, they are. And the distinction has everything to do with the issue of human power.

What do we really have control of? What do we really have the power to do?

Some people have a high internal locus of control, meaning, they believe they have a high capacity to personally impact the world around them. Some people have a high external locus of control, meaning, they believe they have a low capacity to impact the world around them. The former often feel like they can control everything; the latter often feel they are controlled by everything. And then there are those who fall in between these extremes, people who feel and know that they have some control over their lives but that they are also subject to the whims of the world around them for better and worse. It is my opinion that how we grow up–what kind of privileges and disadvantages we inherit, the systems of nurture and discipline that form us, and our exposure to various healthy and toxic environments/people–is ultimately responsible for where we fall on this spectrum of perceived control. Of course, we are capable of moving along this spectrum as we accumulate more wisdom through experience, but those early years make a huge difference in how we interpret our own agency throughout our lives.

For instance, for most of my upbringing I had a single mother who worked hard and always had relatively high paying jobs. She never depended on outside sources of income to support our family. As a result of that modeling, I’ve never even thought about depending on a spouse/lover/partner financially. I’ve been motivated to work hard and secure my own income. That’s what the women in my family do. I’ve been given a high internal locus of control when it comes to my finances because of what I inherited and saw modeled as a kid. I’ve met other women who are on the opposite side of the spectrum on this issue, women who expect to be taken care of financially by a spouse/lover/partner because that was the norm in their household. In their families, women took care of the house, cooked and raised babies; being in the work force was not an option or reality for them and so issues of finance belonged to someone else (usually, a husband). These women have a high external locus of control when it comes to finance because the decisions about and outcomes regarding money happen outside of them. I think I have all the power in the world when it comes to my financial situation. Others think they have no power when it comes to their financial situation. Both are probably skewed. Point being: what we inherit and have modeled for us as kids often has long standing impact upon our way of viewing the world and our understanding of how much power we do or don’t have.

For people who have a high internal locus of self control, it’s hard to keep the distinction between “doing the right thing” and “making the right thing happen” because we (yes, I identify with this crowd) think we have more power than we actually do. For people who have a high external locus of self control, it’s hard to keep the distinction between “doing the right thing” and “making the right thing happen” because they think they have less power than they actually do. And then there are those in the middle who appear to balance things out nicely, folks who walk adequately in their agency and surrender in necessary moments to their own limitations. I’ve always been jealous of them.

Truth is, we have the capacity to make our own choices and we have varying levels of influence over the lives of others. There are also things that will happen to us and around us that we cannot predict or control in any way. We humans are constantly negotiating both power and powerlessness.

And what of God, Pastor? Where does God fit into this?

Most conversations about God are strangely non-explicit about issues of power. And I will admit, I think this a dangerous thing, because people can go around saying things about God that have tremendous influence, things that may or may not be true or helpful. For instance, consider this relatively standard Thanksgiving prayer that could be and probably is uttered in countless homes and sanctuaries each November:

“Thank you God for the blessings you bestow upon us and our family. We know that not everyone in the world has food on the table or a roof over their heads and we thank you for what you have given us.”

There is an implicit claim of power in this prayer, specifically that God chooses to use God’s power to bless some people and to withhold and starve others. When you bring this implicit claim to people’s attention, they often get extremely mortified and deny any reference to God starving anyone, but that’s because their notions of God’s love don’t fit with what you’ve pointed out about their implicit notions of God’s power. The conflict has to do with our notions of who God is (character) and what God is capable of doing (agency). The conflict has to do with intersection of divine love and divine power.

Most of us have been taught classical theology through years of Sunday school, sermons and pop theology in a culture that loves to sound-byte about God. Most of us have been taught the three omni’s and agape, that God is omniscient (all knowing), omnipresent (always around/with us) omnipotent (all powerful), and all loving. Unfortunately the revelation of Jesus Christ is at odds with the classics of theology. The revelation of God made known in Jesus Christ is the incarnation, the gift of divine life made real in human flesh. In Genesis, in Jesus, in Pentecost we read of a God who again and again puts Itself into humanity for the sake of creating/interacting/sustaining the world according to the divine will. The interactivity between human and divine is the point, the meaning of life.

If we have a God who is capable of interacting with the world–which we must in order to have a relationship with God at all, which we must in order to believe and hope that God has any impact on us personally, socially, ecologically, etc–we’ve got a problem with the classical teachings of theology, particularly the third omni, the notion that God is all powerful. God cannot interact with the world freely, nor the world interact with God freely unless both God and the world share power. If the interactivity between divine and human is the meaning of life, then in order to live meaningful lives, the divine and humans must share power.

Classical theology reflects God having a high internal locus of control. The highest, in fact. Perhaps this theology reflects more about the people who have been writing/teaching/spreading it than it reflects about who God is and what kind of power God has. In this sense, I think our ideas of God have suffered from the same mistaken notion that people with a high internal locus of control suffer from. We’ve assumed too much power in one place. And I think we’ve therefore heightened our ideas about God’s ability to “make the right thing happen” at the expense of focusing on and acknowledging when God does “the right thing.”

Even though I have a high internal locus of control, there are certain things I’ve never been able to make happen. Seventeen years ago I wasn’t able to make my father’s cancer go away; he died. Eleven years ago, I wasn’t able to kick a drinking habit by myself; I needed other recovering people to show me how. I’ve never been able stop people from treating each other badly in church no matter how much I preach about integrity and love; scandals still happen and shatter relationships within the Body of Christ. Again and again, other people’s lives and choices, their struggles and strengths have impacted me. Sometimes I’ve chosen the right thing and the right thing has happened because the actions of others assisted the process. Other times I’ve chosen the right thing and the right thing hasn’t happened because the action of others blocked the process. And then there have been times when interactions of shared power have completely deconstructed and reconstructed my idea/experience of what the right thing is in the first place.

What sets God apart from the variability I’ve just described above is God’s love. God’s power, though perfect, is not infinite. I bet God wanted to take my dad’s cancer away too. I bet God wants addicts to get clean too. I bet God wants people to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly, always. Of course God wants these things; this is the One who says “I have no desire for the death of them that die; turn therefore and live.” But again, power is shared and God is, in the freedom ethic God employs with us, subject to influence and the outcomes beyond God’s control. Given this, I bet God grieves as we grieve when our hopes and desires for the right thing to happen don’t work out.

Whatever power God can exert, we can be sure it is rooted in eternal love. Humans do not always choose the right thing. But we can always count on God to do the right thing because it is in the divine nature to do so. There still may be times when God can’t make the right thing happen, because God’s power is not unilateral, but we can have faith that when God acts with us, God is enacting the right thing right beside us. Whereas I cannot live with the idea of a God who has all power and chooses to do nothing for those who suffer, I can live with and partner with and give thanks for a God who does all She can with persuasive, passionate and resurrecting love. In fact, I am emboldened by such love to try and become more like it in character and action–that’s the power of its influence. Perhaps influence is, ultimately, eternally, more powerful than control.

Doing the right thing is the only way to ensure we will influence the right thing to happen. The right thing still may not come about, but it certainly won’t if we don’t take the right action. Our capacity to do the right thing is rooted in our ability to faithfully perceive and act at the intersection of our power/limitations and to trust that we are always sharing power and interacting with a God who is beside us acting right all along.