Lucky Girl Syndrome Part 2
Problematic practices and befuddled beliefs
Hello Friends,
Here’s Part Two of Lucky Girl Syndrome.
Last time I explored the ideology behind manifesting trends like the #LuckyGirl one that is currently popular on TikTok and explained what I find problematic about this practice of manifesting. If you missed that post, you can check it out here.
I also briefly raised the concern that Christians can and do fall into their own version of manifesting, and this is what I want to focus on in this week’s post.
Fair warning: this might be a little… controversial.
So, here we go…
Christianity & Manifestation
I had to endure a long, dark foray into the Google search engine in order to write this post: a foray that resulted in a lot of slack-jaw gawking at the laptop screen just to confirm that, yes, there are Christians who openly practice manifesting and see the Law of Attraction as supported by the Bible. In fact, they would argue that the Bible is the originator of the concept and Jesus is the model practitioner. As far as they’re concerned, the New Age movement simply stole Biblical principles and they are merely reclaiming them. For every article out there warning Christians against manifesting, there seems to be another providing a list of verses to show that the Law of Attraction is compatible with the Bible’s teachings. The most important difference, these Christians claim, is that whilst the New Age practice appeals to the universe, they are appealing to God.
You can even buy Christian-specific manifestation journals, subtitled: You have not because you ask not, to ‘help you visualize what God has already made available to you’. Presumably, these journals contain other Bible verses egregiously ripped from their context to make them appear to say something that they don’t in the original text.
Although this mixing of Christianity and New Age is worrying, it is a least obvious. You can engage in a fairly open and clear discussion on whether or not the Law of Attraction is Biblical or not. It’s unlikely to get too confusing, because, apart from exchanging ‘universe’ with ‘God’, most of the terminology stays the same.
The more worrying trend is the tendency in certain Christian circles to adopt the ideology of New Age manifestation, but disguised in Christianised language. These groups don’t even know they’re mimicking New Age practice because it doesn’t come up in the terminology. Instead of calling it manifesting or the Law of Attraction, they call it ‘decreeing and declaring’, ‘naming it and claiming it’, ‘the law of sowing and reaping’, ‘word of faith’ or even sometimes just a type of ‘praying’ that has little to do with how the Bible actually teaches us to pray. Instead of channelling positive energy, these Christians claim to be activating faith. Instead of appealing to the universe, they say they’re bringing forth God’s blessings.
Despite the Christianese, it’s still the practice of manifesting—believing your success is down to your own positive thinking and speaking, that the power lies in your hands, you just have to complete the right rituals in order to ‘activate’ it. Instead of manipulating the universe, you’re manipulating God. It’s shaking out the fairy dust, channelling your inner Jedi but calling that power faith instead of the Force.
The problem, of course, is that there is often a grain of the truth somewhere in the reasoning behind these sorts of practices. Positive thinking does have a positive impact on your mental health and your quality of life; God does answer prayer and the Bible does instruct us to have faith. But these truths have been taken out of the context of a much bigger picture, and, devoid of theological nuances, they get twisted, just a little, just enough, to become counterfeits—lies, even. And so we turn God into a wish-granting sprite, faith into a nebulous energy we can utilise to magic things into existence, and ourselves into Luke Skywalker.
It would take a whole series of posts to deal in detail with all the ‘Christian’ practices that veer into manifesting territory, so I’m just going to focus on a few of the most obvious ones. Not all of these practices are inherently evil in and of themselves. Some of them are excellent tools for growing in our discipleship or managing our mental health. But all of them need to be practiced with discernment.
How to Train Your Jedi
Journaling
What: In the New Age practice, there are a variety of different methods and forms of journaling that can be used to perfect the art of manifesting. Some of these are extremely formalised, others are much more informal. The main aim though is to write down manifesting mantras that will help channel your positive thinking.
Good: Journaling, of course, can be used for anything: to record experiences and reflections, to express private thoughts and feelings, to help keep focused on our goals. Many Christians use journaling as a means to speak to God, by writing down their prayers instead of just speaking them. Journaling can be a wonderful way of recording God’s goodness and the way He has moved in our lives. All good stuff.
Danger Zone: Creating a spell book. It’s easy to turn our prayers into mantras, a wish list declaring our desires and nothing more. And when we do that we can start to believe that these written declarations contain some sort of magic, as if the act of writing them down is what will make them a reality. Prayers are not spells. They are not the abracadabra to a magic trick. One Christian manifester claims ‘It is no secret that when you write things down they are more likely to come true.’ Really? Is this scientifically proven? It doesn’t seem to be true of my household chores list… the hoovering never seems to get done.
Affirmations
What: Affirmations are positive statements designed to develop a more positive mindset. They’re written in the present tense and are often, but not always, framed as ‘I am…’ statements. For example: ‘I am abundant in my finances, happiness and in love’, ‘I am smart, creative and motivated’. In New Age practice, this is sometimes called the Law of Assumption. The idea is that you speak as if your desires have already been fulfilled.
Good: Again, affirmations aren’t necessarily a problem, depending on the content and the intent. It can be helpful to make affirming, scripture-based statements that affirm God’s promises: ‘I am a child of God’, ‘I am a sinner saved by grace’, ‘My hope is in Jesus’. All of these help us to maintain a godly perspective and remind us of who God is and what he has already done for us.
The Danger Zone: Ego. When the content becomes more ‘me’ focused than God focused; when we start affirming what we can do and not what God has promised. When the focus is on feeling powerful and self-satisfied. When we take scripture out of context and affirm things that are not promised to us in God’s Word. When we believe that our ‘I am’ is the same as God’s ‘I AM’ and when we use these affirmations as if these statements are some sort of key to unlocking or activating God’s blessings… like pressing the Big Red Button on a Blessings Bomb… that’s when the only thing we’re actually affirming is our own ego.
Meditation
What: this is another technique designed to develop positive thoughts. In the New Age practice, meditation is supposed to help increase a person’s vibrations so that they can become a magnet for their hopes and desires. The key steps of meditation are to relax, focus on your goals and visualise what achieving them would look like, feel like, sound like before beginning to manifest them.
Good: There is a legitimate Christian, Biblical form of meditation, but again, as with affirmations, the key is in the content and the intent. The scriptures tell us to meditate on God’s Word, His law and commandments, and to dwell on what is good. This is about engaging our minds to reflect on the person and character of God and remember all He has done and all He has promised. The goal is to know God better so we can serve Him better.
Danger Zone: Again, Ego. Meditation can become a bit like Jedi-training, trying to tap into an internal power that will enable us to realise our dreams and change our reality. The pull to focus on our own personal satisfaction and elevation is hard to resist. When we become focused on just feeling good about ourselves instead of on the goodness of God, we’ve lost sight of the goal.
All of these practices have the potential for good and bad application. Used rightly, they can better equip us to serve God. Used wrongly, they become tools to serve ourselves. The problem doesn’t lie in the practices themselves, but in wrong beliefs we hold that cause us to twist these exercises into something dishonouring and even harmful.
Again, it would take a whole series of posts to explore these wrong beliefs in detail, so I’m only going to touch on a few of them VERY briefly here.
I am One with the Force and the Force is with Me
Power & Authority: the theme tune to the practice of manifesting might as well be Snap!’s The Power. Sing it with me: ‘I got the PoWeR!’. There seems to be a misconception amongst certain Christian circles that God has handed over his omnipotence to us. Maybe it’s time to revisit the idea of a Sovereign God?
Divinity & Identity: The misconception about our own power comes from confusion over the concept that we are made in God’s image. Some want to take this to mean that we are therefore little gods (note the small ‘g’) or that we have a divine nature. Only God is divine. He’s the only deity. The creator. We are the creature. We are not God, big ‘G’ or small ‘g’. Thinking we could be like God, that we could obtain His omniscience and His omnipotence is what got us in this fallen mess to begin with (Genesis 3:5).
Desire: Let me give you an example I’ve seen used a couple of times to explain why God must always want to give us our desires. It goes like this:
The English word ‘desire’ comes from the Latin ‘de’ + ‘sire’, meaning ‘from’ + ‘father’. Therefore, since the English word ‘desire’ means ‘from the father’, this is evidence that God is the one who gives us all our desires. Therefore, why wouldn’t He grant them?
Okay. So. Here’s the problem.
Firstly, that’s not the etymology of the word ‘desire’. A thirty-second search of an online etymology dictionary will tell you that the original Latin is ‘desiderare’, most likely from the phrase ‘de sidere’ meaning ‘from the stars’ (‘sidere’ coming from the word ‘sideris’, which means ‘heavenly body, star, constellation’).
So, no fathers doling out desires to see here.
Also, that’s how you do etymology: use an etymological dictionary.
Secondly, the etymology of an English word has nothing to do with theology that is based on a text written in Hebrew and ancient Greek. Literally nothing. Christians get their theology from the Bible, not Shakespeare. The Bible wasn’t written in Latin or English. And in the Old Testament alone, there are twenty-seven Hebrew words translated as ‘desire’ (including root words and their derivatives). Not all of these have positive connotations. In fact, a lot of the time in the scriptures, human desire comes under the scrutiny and judgement of God, not His approval.
Prayer: whole books have been written on this topic, so I’m only going to say that prayer is consistently defined, taught and modelled in the Bible as humble petition to a sovereign God.
Prosperity vs. Suffering: Jesus promises us life in abundance if we choose to accept Him as our saviour and follow faithfully after Him. He also promises us tribulation, rejection and persecution; and he tells us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. The promise of self-denial and suffering is one often conveniently ignored in favour of a materialistic interpretation of ‘life in abundance’. Note… Jesus does not promise ‘abundance’. He promises abundant LIFE. And that becomes a matter of definition. What is Jesus’ definition of LIFE? Does ours align with it? Or have we got our own ideas we’re pursuing?
Context, context, context
Our main error for belief and therefore for entering into dodgy TikTok approved practices, is our misunderstanding and misuse of the Bible. So often, the Bible is treated as a compendium. That’s why the internet is littered with articles titled ’25 Bible Verses about Love’, ‘40 Bible Verses for Prosperity and Wealth’, ’15 Bible Verses on Manifesting’. And because the Bible gets treated as a compendium, verses get taken out of context right, left and centre. In fact, taking scripture out of context is a classic Christian habit. Sometimes, in Christian company, I have to repress the urge to put on my Teacher Voice and yell: ‘Put that Bible verse back where you found it and back away with your hands in the air!”. The only reason I actually take a much gentler approach is because I too was once a context-stealing Bible-quoter.
It’s this habit of taking Bible verses out of context that leads us into unbiblical belief and therefore unbiblical practices.
Let me give you one example (out of many) before I wrap up here.
‘For as a man thinks in his heart, so is he’
This comes from Proverbs 23:7 and it seems to be used a lot to justify manifesting as a Christian practice. In fact, it seems to be cited as the clearest, most convincing Bible verse.
This verse is obviously about the power of positive thinking. Whatever a man thinks he is in his heart is what he will become. I mean, how much clearer can you get?
Right?
Now let’s look at this verse in context, considering it’s actually only half a verse in the first place.
‘For as he thinks in his heart, so is he: “Eat and drink!” he says to you, But his heart is not with you.’
That’s the whole verse.
Immediately, questions should be raised. The verse starts with the word ‘For’ suggesting the previous verse has some relevance to the meaning of this statement. The ‘for’ acts like a ‘because’; verse seven is actually an explanation or justification for the verse before it.
Secondly, who is this mysterious ‘he’ who is doing the thinking in his heart?
And thirdly, with the second half of the verse added to the mix '…But his heart is not with you’, the whole thing doesn’t sound all that positive anymore.
So, for better context, let’s check verse six:
‘Do not eat the bread of a miser, Nor desire his delicacies’
It explains a lot, doesn’t it?
The verse is about a miser, a man who is tight with his money and resources, who doesn’t like to share even a morsel (verse 8) with his neighbour. He makes a show of seeming generous, but his heart isn’t in it. Secretly, he resents having to give you anything. The warning here is to not trust such a person. To not eat their food or take what they offer because it won’t be worth the price. The emphasis of the verse is on the ‘Do not’ command: ‘Do not eat the bread of a miser’. And then verse seven gives us the reason why. In fact, these two verses are just one ‘Do not’ in a long list of ‘Do nots’ throughout the rest of the chapter.
Read in context, this passage is clearly not about positive thinking. And it’s certainly not a call to manifest your heart’s desires.
It doesn’t take much of a Bible study to reveal the true meaning of a single verse and rattle the foundations of a false theology. And that’s the thing. If we want our faith to have a solid foundation, we need to be sure we are reading the scriptures and understanding them in their fullness.
It’s been a bit of a winding journey from TikTok’s #LuckyGirl trend to a Bible study of Proverbs 23:7, but hopefully a few questions have been answered, and some more raised, on the way. I didn’t get around to looking at the topic of faith, so I’ll have to save that for its own series. Thanks for tagging along for the ride and for putting up with the Star Wars references. I hope it wasn’t too exhausting or confusing.
I think my main takeaway from figuring through this topic is how important it is to ensure our beliefs, and the practices that come out of those, are founded on a true understanding of God’s word. Context is essential. Discernment is vital. Keep your Bible open… and maybe an etymology dictionary too.
What’s your takeaway? Is there anything you’d like to explore further? Any questions that still need answers?
I know that not everyone will agree with my thoughts. I don’t mind if you have a different view. I’d still love to hear it. And even if we don’t end up coming to the same conclusion, I hope we can still continue to have healthy and open conversations as we figure this stuff out together.
If you enjoyed reading this post, or any other, please do let me know by giving it a like or sharing it with a friend using the link below.
PJ