Jonathots Daily Blog
(1950)
Those who are not religious by nature call it “destiny.” The more religious among us refer to it as Calvinism.
It is the contention that there is some sort of “master plan” for every human being–that we find our purpose, value and joy in discovering this mystical path and following it fervently.
It is one of those strange areas where those who believe in God and those who don’t converge in a common mission of discovering an individual odyssey that was pre-determined for each and every soul.
There are many problems with the belief in destiny:
- Often it removes the motivation to excel in our pursuits or experiment with new ideas.
- It can make us bitter when misfortune strikes our journey and we are dumbfounded because our Benefactor has taken us down a darkened thoroughfare.
- It can cause people to walk away from legitimately good relationships under the guise of pursuing the perfect soul mate.
- And it can render us completely incapacitated as we wait for guidance that just never seems to come.
There are really three choices:
1. God has a wonderful plan for our lives, which we must follow if we want to be pleasing to Him and truly happy.
2. God has a plan for our lives but we can take detours and even change it up a little bit, as long as we still get to the point He wills us to be.
3. We have free will choice and a Father who stays with us and will never leave nor forsake us.
Now I’m sure there are derivations, blendings and even differentiations but generally speaking, anything you would come up with probably falls within the scope of one of these three ideas.
My problem with #1 is that Jesus compares God to an earthly father. There is NO earthly father who would ever think about controlling the lives of his children–even if he felt it was to their betterment. In doing so he would weaken their wills and perhaps make them resentful of his interference.
When it comes to Choice #2, I become confused because random acts and accidental discoveries are frequently at the root of the progression of the human cause. People were searching for different cures when magnificent elixirs were stumbled upon. The Bible makes it clear that time and chance happens to all–and if we’re under some belief that God’s will is a straight line or even an arc, heading for a specific apex in the future, then we rule out the glorious possibility that our lives can be enriched and changed for the better. And even generational curses, which seem placed on some families by genetics and environment, can be breached and overcome.
The only sensible understanding of humans on earth is free will. That means there is a past, by the grace of God there is a present, but the future is undeclared. Why?
Because the future is in our hands.
Perhaps you would feel more comfortable to think that God was controlling everything, but in doing so He would be taking away any significance of worship–because we would not be selecting to follow Him, but instead, toeing the line out of fear.
I love God because He gives me free will. I love free will because I can choose God.
I can choose God in my dealings with human beings, I can choose my Father in heaven through the tenderness I express through my art–and I can even choose a divine sense of earthly understanding when I consider my calories and food intake.
I believe that the devotion to the notion of destiny has stymied our creativity, expansion, love and spirit of adventure.
It makes us childish–childish in the sense that we are afraid to displease an angry parent, while insisting that we love him dearly.
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Jonathots Daily Blog 