Is God a micro-manager? Not according to most theologians, who'd say that he pretty much lets us get on with stuff unless there's a particular reason to intervene.
For US Congressman Brad Sherman (Democrat, California), things are a little different. In what must count as the weirdest contribution to policy-making of any politician ever, he's convinced that God has plans for the US Federal Reserve, which is considering whether to raise interest rates.
Sherman testified to a congressional committee yesterday: "God's plan is not for things to rise in the autumn. As a matter of fact, that's why we call it fall. Nor is it God's plan for things to rise in winter, through the snow. God's plan is that things rise in the spring. So if you want to be good with the almighty, you might want to delay until May."
It's not clear from the clip whether Sherman was using an illustration that got away from him or whether he really thought that interest rate rises should be based on the agricultural cycle.
However, for the benefit of policy-makers everywhere, here are a few other deductions based on Sherman's methodology.
1. Millions of birds migrate in the winter. Every winter, governments around the world should let millions of migrants in. After all, they'll be gone in the spring.
2. Water flows naturally downhill, so it's God's plan that the economy should go downhill too.
3. The lilies of the field don't toil or spin, but they do pretty well. So God's plan is that we should all stop working and see what happens.
4. Water freezes in the winter, so God's plan is that the US government should freeze its negotiations with Russia until April.
5. Air is free, so we should make all the cable channels free-to-air immediately.
The truth? God's plan was to give us the brains to work things out for ourselves.
Follow @RevMarkWoods on Twitter.
