God, we all know, moves in mysterious ways. Until today, I never thought to wonder where the expression came from, so a quick Google provided me with the answer: it comes from a hymn written in 1773 by one William Cowper who, it turned out, was suffering from terrible depression and doubt. ‘God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm,‘ he wrote. So mysterious, I fear, that no one has quite worked them out, but the actor, boxer and influencer Jake Paul reckons he has. He was ordered by God to become a world boxing champion.
What with all the problems in the world at the moment, you might think that God would have enough on his hands as it is. People dying in poverty, climate change, wars and conflict across the globe, people being struck down with terrible, incurable diseases, all pretty serious, you might think, but if Jake Paul is to believed, The Great Man in the sky is far more concerned with his boxing career. That’s very mysterious.
I am thinking that poor old William Cowper, who had a number of failed suicide attempts, so bad was his mental health, probably didn’t have people like Jake Paul in mind when he wrote his hymn. According to people who understand these things, or at least say they do, the hymn is actually saying that God’s ways are actually meant to be mysterious and we, the people, are not meant to understand what he is doing and why. God – international man of mystery?
Well, I am not sure about that. Obviously, as an atheist I do not have any faith, nor belief, in God’s ways, mysterious or not, but I do have an opinion on Jake Paul’s instructions from above: bullshit. A brief glimpse at his wiki page, which is bound to be accurate because it’s on the internet, suggests the man is a wrong ‘un. Modestly talented, a Jack of some trades and clearly a master of only one: grifting.
If it turns out there is a God – and I really hope there isn’t because I would hate the idea of being under permanent surveillance by someone who knows not only want I am doing, but also what I am thinking – and He is as good as believers say he is, I have my doubts that one of his main priorities would be to instruct an oddball to render people unconscious in order to become a world boxing champion. That sort of thing can be better left to proper boxing experts like Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren, both of whom don’t appear to move in mysterious ways. In any event, Jake Paul had better hope that God is actually there in his corner if he decides to fight a top current fighter and not the washed-up veterans he’s been up against so far.
