I’ve heard of this before, though I’ve never heard this name for it (that I remember). I saw someone talking about it on X this morning, as I was hearing from a friend about some travel travails he is having.
The theory holds that God sometimes lets ‘bad’ things happen to us to prevent a greater harm. In the version put forth this morning, someone burns their toast, which sets off a chain of events that results in them missing the bus/train/whatever to work. As a result, they are late or miss the day entirely. Sounds like a bad day, right? However, by missing the bus/train/whatever, or having to take a different route, they miss having an accident/being in an accident and being badly hurt or killed.
For all that it doesn’t take into account free will (an important point), it is a cute and quite possibly valid concept. There have been plenty of times I’ve gone ‘Whew! Glad I didn’t go that route’ when driving/traveling. It is always a good thought to think that there is a reason things happened when we hit delays, detours, and such. It’s even more important to consider such when such things happen on our spiritual journey and see things not as a setback, delay, or detour in regards how and where we think we should go. After all, it’s not our will that should be the lead.
My friend will make it home in due time, and he may be avoiding something worse or — an important point to consider — he may experience something needful for his growth and development. That is a point most versions of the ‘Burnt Toast’ theory I’ve seen over the years have missed. It’s not always about avoiding a danger, but about recognizing and accepting an opportunity for growth.
Just some food for thought this morning. Posting may be a bit spotty, I have midterms this week on top of a host of other things. I’m just thankful it wasn’t last week as there would have been no way…
More soon.
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Yup! And I attribute it to our Guardian Angels… I don’t know if our Guardian Angels have a sense of humor, but I sometimes think it’s so. Their actions to protect us will sometimes cause us great frustration over seemingly tiny things that just go wrong. But when we look back (if we realize what has been avoided) we understand that those little frustrations changed what we did, how we did it, and when when it was done, and resulted in our protection.
I truly believe that I have experienced that, and was saved from something awful by my Guardian Angel’s intervention. While I was pretty frustrated at a delay of several minutes caused by a suddenly crazy GPS, I was quite thankful that I had avoided a terrible Autoroute accident that happened just those several minutes ahead of me on that drive. I also hope that my Guardian Angel had a good chuckle about my frustrations.
Good points, and I strongly suspect that both my Guardian Angel and the Lord have a sense of humor. I will also share that over the last few years I’ve offered some very sincere and profound apologies to my Guardian Angel for my behavior and all the extra work.