Does God have a plan for us?
A lot of people believe He does, and generally speaking, I have been one of them.
There is a tendency to evaluate our relationship with God based on the things that happen to us in our lives: when good things happen, it’s comforting to think that we have earned God’s favor. When bad things happen, we either assume we are being punished, or we explain it away by saying that all things happen according to God’s will, which is beyond human understanding.
I had a lot of these ideas during my career as a singer. I had certain physical and intellectual gifts which gave me advantages over other colleagues, and fantastic opportunities seemed to materialize from nowhere at lucky moments. There was a steady progression to my blossoming career, each step on the ladder more challenging, more important, more exciting, and more promising. I had a sense that what was befalling me was “meant to be.”
And then it all collapsed. Though I had always been borderline neurotic about taking care of my voice and my body, suddenly it seemed as though they were at war with one another. Through the scourge of acid reflux, my stomach attacked my throat. Each night as I slept, my dreams and hopes were slowly eaten away.
Why was this happening to me? Had I offended God? Was it a test? Temporary setback? Or was it a message that God wanted me doing something else? I think the only possibility I didn’t contemplate was that my misfortune was random and essentially meaningless.
I have always had the idea that God has a plan for us. In many places, the Bible tells us not to worry about our lives, but rather to put our trust in God. Many Christians believe in a “plan.” And I’m not saying there isn’t one.
But lately, this idea of “a” plan has been holding me back. I have been struggling to determine just what “the plan” is, what I am “supposed” to be doing, wondering whether “the plan” is something that is just going to happen at some point, or what. Do I search for it, or wait for it? Or, is this it?
If there is “a plan” for each of us, then why does an infinitely loving and compassionate God subject us to tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, plane crashes, heart attacks, or school shootings? Did those little Amish girls die according to God’s will? Was that the plan that was worked out for them from before Creation?
Last night in my bible study we were discussing whether God is “in control” of the world. The priest suggested we view God’s interaction with us in terms of “purpose,” rather than “plan.” And suddenly a light went on.
If we are all subject to “the plan,” then in a sense we are putting our faith in a God who uses violence and tragedy to further his will (which, depending on how much stock you put into the Old Testament, is a supportable idea). Why does a God who loves us all equally “plan” for some of us to be rich and comfortable, but most of us poor and miserable? There is an inherent inequity in the concept of “God’s plan” that can only be, and often is, explained as humanly incomprehensible.
But with the idea of purpose, there is complete equity. It’s a subtle but important distinction. We all have the same purpose (to love and serve one another), but each of us can serve that purpose in our own way. If there’s a plan, how can we have free will? But through free will, we can choose to fulfill our purpose.
These are new thoughts for me, not fully worked out. But I felt immediately relieved. Perhaps my previous career aspirations weren’t thwarted by divine intervention. Perhaps I don’t have to sit here and wait for God’s plan to start making me happy. Perhaps I can best serve God’s purpose by making my own plan.
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24 comments:
I just want you to know that I'm sitting here smiling. That is all.
I may be a cranky, confirmed atheist, but this post really moved me. So many times I get frustrated with the concept of a divine "plan," but the "purpose" idea seems much more inclusive. Less hard to believe.
Not that I believe, of course...
I've always gone more with the "purpose" concept (non-Divine) rather than the "plan."
It's important to note that when many people talk about "plan," they're really describing "destiny," which in many cases could preclude choice or free will.
"Purpose" is something we can all attain. There doesn't have to be a "plan" for us, but we can find a "purpose" while we're alive.
Just my two cents.
I've never been able to get on board with 100% Determinism, nor 100% Free Will; I wrote a paper in college, describing how I saw/believed that the two were inextricably intertwined. It remains one of only two papers I wrote for school that I actually liked. But, having fewer than 6 pages, possibly fewer than 4 - I can't remember now - it left MUCH to be examined/discussed. 'God forbid' I write more than the requirement!
If you're looking for a point to this comment, there isn't one. :) Except to say that I liked this post. Very much.
(Have you seen Sliding Doors? Highly recommend.)
It's not what God's plan is for you, it's what is your plan for life, that will be accepted by God.
Free will and choices is what it's about. Will you make the choices that lead to a sucessfull, happy life void of as little sin as possible. Don't wait around for God to make something happen in your life, use the gifts God gave you and make life happen, yourself. Living at all times by God's laws.
To Matthew- I hate to get argumentative on such a heartwarming post, but I don't see how there can be either "purpose" or "plan" without a divine presence.
Divine Providence is what we're talking about in either case, and there can only be "providence" when there is a "provider" by my logic.
Purpose, by my definition, is the cause or reason for which something exists. If there is a reason for something to exist, then that reason cannot be the result of that existance, but rather the reason causes the existence. Divine Providence is the reason without a reason of its own.
Normally a "cause" or reason must always be the "effect" of something else- this number of causes and effects goes upward in a pyramid until you reach the one cause that has no cause of its own.
I know some of this is your standard Christian Origin Philosophy from Augustine or Aquinas, but that doesn't exempt it from secular recognition.
I understand there may simply be a human necessity of purpose or plan affecting both seculars and religious people, but it seems to me that the only philosophically supportable Providence is Divine Providence
Andy - thank you for your post!
I've had similar, though less successful, events in my life that have just lined up out of either complete luck or divine intervention (never quite worked out which) and as events unfolded I would always say to myself, "everything happens for a reason, so what can I learn from this?" Yet at the same time I have been at odds with the concept... believing that I can't just sit around waiting for something to happen to me, I feel the need to uproot and make things happen for myself. But if I do that, am I going against what is "supposed" to happen? Would I be swimming against the stream that I should just float down and enjoy the ride?
Your post - thinking of it in terms of "life has a purpose" rather than "life has a plan" is enlightening. Before I would look at a line up of events as having been handed to me - but now it feels more like these are opportunities presenting themselves and it is up to me to take it and run with it, or ignore it... or something in between even.
Our lives are not drawn out for us, we have been handed the pencil and paper... what we do with it is up to us.
I like that way of thinking. I have had, for years, a problem with people saying that God was watching out for us (are there those for whom God is not watching out?) or similar thinking. Also I hate it when I hear of people not taking action because they are waiting on God's will. This seems to me to not be using that brain inside the noggin that God gave you.
I like your way of explaining this and I think it will help me out when I'm listening to this and trying not to scream, to have a logical way of explaining how I feel.
I am interested, too, in your story of your voice being attacked by acid reflux. I am nowhere near a professional singer, but for the last three years or so I've had trouble with my voice--getting very hoarse just when I need it most, to help lead music or do chanting in church. I was going to join a women's choir this year but I just felt I needed to figure out what was going on with my voice first. I finally went to the doctor in August and he said it could be acid reflux. He said I'm squeezing my voicebox when I sing. Can you expound on your story, and if anything has helped? He did prescribe me meds for acid reflux but I hate to be on medication for the rest of my life. I'm only 37, too young for that, dang it! If you have a blog posting about it, please let me know. If you'd prefer to respond to me privately, my email's prezeliz@ecosky.com.
Funny, but I saw Hamlet last night by Chicago's Shakespeare Theatre and riffed with a friend on these same issues of free will and divine providence. It's an especially rich topic in Hamlet because of correspondences between the person and the state and between one's personal narrative and national history. Anyway, the long and short of it is that (1) while Hamlet is tuned into something spooky, he doesn't really fully understand the Danish national Zeitgeist (how Spirit works in History), and (2) while he has deep thoughts and apprehensions of death, he doesn't perceive the actual presence of Death around him. Death, with a capital D, is the uncast supporting character of the play who appears to and finally speaks to Hamlet through other people (Lamord, Yorrick, Osric). I think that if we want to get really spooky, we can strain our brain - like Hamlet did - to understand death, Spirit, and our role in History, but God's plan will still evade us. In the end, Hamlet decided only that the Readiness is all.
"To Matthew- I hate to get argumentative on such a heartwarming post, but I don't see how there can be either "purpose" or "plan" without a divine presence. "
Allow me to explain, little-cicero.
A "purpose" and "plan" are things that one can come up with or arrive at on their own. There are lots of folks who feel as though their life has no purpose. Whether this is true or not, for the sake of argument let's say that it is. Now, if one day one of those people has an epiphany and decides to go start volunteering at a plethora of charities, then it could be said that their life now has "purpose."
side note: I hesitate to describe people's lives in such terms, but it's also true that "purpose" has an opposite, which does exist, called "lack of purpose." So... anyhow...
There can also be a "plan" attached to someone's life, as part of their purpose, which could also very well be man-made.
So, in other words, the way I look at it is: When we're born, we don't know what our "purpose" is going to be. We've got to find it. But I believe it's designed by ourselves, not by a Divine Being.
And it's also worth noting that if it were designed by a Divine Being, then it wouldn't just be "purpose," but "destiny."
I, too, don't want to get argumentative on such a heartwarming post, but you put it out there, so we'll just have to agree to disagree. I think humanity gets on quite well without any Divine Providence, and you don't. We're not likely to sway each other on this, so I'll simply leave it with:
Have a nice day. :-)
Have a nicer day :>)
YAY! I'm so glad you finally snapped out of the neo-Calvinist deterministic viewpoint ... and lest you give the priest too much credit, know that you have been arguing yourself out of it for years (most recently while exploring the "wealth means God loves you" concept). (I rejoiced for the priest, too, though.)
I see now that part of our disconnect in discussions was that my definition of "God's Plan" was very very different from the one you held: mostly I consider it an overall history-and-beyond plan (which is mysterious but has something to do with maximizing the number of us who end up in a good place after we die). The concept of "God's plan for my life" has always been of necessity an event-cone plan, because what I choose from moment to moment limits old and opens new possibilities ... but God is infinite and can absorb my randomness and always offer the fullest of His Grace in my life anyhow. (Sometimes I even manage to accept some of it ;).)
I did want to put forward that, for the Christian (clearly not for the atheists among us :) ), the purpose of life is (let's see if I can remember the golden oldie) "to love God, to serve God, and to be with Him forever in Heaven." Your Universal Purpose, "to love and to serve one another," is a subsidiary of that, and properly (for Christians) depends upon it. (And lest I be accused of fundamentalist obfuscation of a laudible purpose, please note that I said "depends upon it," not, "can be ignored unless you are already doing God's Revealed Will"--I do not think it is in any way justifiable to say one is doing "God's Will" and NOT "love and serve one another:" the subsidiary is an Absolutely necessary outgrowth, in Christian religious thought, of the primary.)
(And LC, before you get too excited that I agreed with you about the necessary primacy of the First Cause ;), I think you picked a silly fight--among the creative, God-like attributes ("create them ... in Our image") humans have is the ability to create purpose on our own, even up to life-defining purpose. Free will is null if we can't choose a Godless purpose ... or a purpose not conciously Godly.)
(Small side-tidbit: apparently (not that this is at all clear unless you ask a scholar) the Catholic teaching on vocations, and specifically on Priestly Vocations, is that the calling is not itself a Vocation unless and until it is chosen/accepted by the call-ee. So much for the most seemingly deterministic of all life-plans ;).)
Misc., directly related: Andy, if you give any credence to traditional Christian spiritual cosmology, you of course might recognize also the possibility of an active negative spritiual attack from a player (or players) besides God--and spirit of course is tied directly in with physical as well as mental health. Ironically(?), I don't myself believe in randomness in health issues (and am, not as relatedly, undetermined about the "randomness" of geological events--but neither makes me determinist ;) ).
End: To me, life journeys are so necessarily individualistic, and each human life such an historical blip (while mysteriously also being of ultimate value) ... God created us, He seems somehow or other to have "especially" created humans, as individuals and as community, and it would be kind of dumb to require things of us He didn't make reasonably, in our natures, possible ... God must accept us in the Now and Completely at every moment, or why accept us at all ... and He must offer us full communion at every moment, or why offer us any communion with Him at all ...
Determinism isn't "human," it is automaton; it denies our inborn ability to choose.
Whatever else happens, we always have the option to choose good, and I believe every choice is ultimately (and individually) resonant.
I am so excited for you :).
Hey KR, I've been wondering where you were. Looking forward to seeing you next month.
Neo-Calvinist? Here I thought I got the idea from the Cylons.
I chose "to love and serve one another," because for my purposes of making Christianity less scary to people who distrust it, I find that using more doctrine-specific language only reinforces the barrier. Loving and serving each other is something I know we can all agree on -- because it's one of the things that secularists comment on all the time, they don't see religious people doing that. But everyone sees that as our fundamental purpose here...unless you're Ayn Rand, in which case, I'm so sorry.
It's been an interesting week as I rebuild my little theological house of cards in my head. This concept is both liberating and a little terrifying. It's nice to take ownership of my will, but that has meant it's also time to make some choices I wish could be left to "someone else."
Also, my little sidenote: I'm finding it interesting that four people I've known jr. high or earlier commented on this.
"(And LC, before you get too excited that I agreed with you about the necessary primacy of the First Cause ;), I think you picked a silly fight--among the creative, God-like attributes ("create them ... in Our image") humans have is the ability to create purpose on our own, even up to life-defining purpose. Free will is null if we can't choose a Godless purpose ... or a purpose not conciously Godly.)"
A fine opportunity to clarify my philosophy has presented itself.
God has a purpose for every one of us. He helps to guide that purpose through his word, but the purpose varies among his children I'm sure. Purpose is just one of many Truths that God makes possible and knows. As humans we cannot know these Truths, but for the sake of our own happiness and mental health we ought to seek our purposes.
This is much the same as moral or other Truths- Truth is out there to find and it is not innate. It is by reason that we find our purpose, usually after experiencing a large portion of our lives.
LC, I don't really disagree with you (except your persistence in insisting on reason as the only legitimate life-assessment tool, of course ;) ), I just think your argument didn't have much to do with the "purpose" suggested by Matthew, which by his own description is of the self-defined(/self-discovered) human type.
Andy/anyone else who wondered: been under a pile of stress. Probably not getting lots better anytime soon, so despite my love for a theological discussion, my attendance will continue to be sporadic. Andy, I definitely look forward to seeing you during your visit :).
Andy, I recognized that your life-purpose construction was made to be secularly acceptable ... I just wonder whether, since you are a known theologically conservative Christian, you should not admit the formative basis--build the whole picture. Folks who are reading here won't be shocked by it, and the universiality of your conclusion, if it is in fact secularly agreeable (I hope it is!), wouldn't be affected ... but it would let non-Christians see how faith in God can lead to good thinking (instead of bad-, or non-!, thinking, to which faith is often said to lead). It's my defense of [the concept of faith] tick.
Hey ~N, don't suppose you'd let me read thatpaper sometime ;)?
I'm a theological conservative? How do you figure?
I wanted to throw this into the mix.
I've taken to calling myself a zen agnostic, zen because I believe in accepting and fully experiencing everything that happens to us, and agnostic because I believe we can never truly understand god's purpose (or even if there is a god at all).
Now, since I can't know exactly what God wants for me, or what it wants me to do for others, the only way I can think of to figure out what's good and bad is to think about it with the assumption that god does not exist.
After all, if god does exist, and it is loving, it won't care what I believe, as long as my actions are good... good actions for wrong reasons are better than bad actions for wrong reasons.
Yes, I personally believe that what matters most to God is sincerity.
What matters most to God is goodness. Goodness encompasses love and sincerity, but neither of those alone is enough. You don't have to be a Christian to be good, but I believe it helps (duh- I'm a Christian). I do believe that if you use your non-affiliated status to "bend the rules" via moral subjectivity, you're chances of goodness are compromised, but just as with any other sort of judgement, it's not how you get there- it's where you are.
I'm late to the party, but loved the post and feel compelled to add my two cents. I've long believed that while I do have purpose in this life, that wasn't to be confused with a specific plan. I don't think I'm supposed to do X, Y and Z, and in that order. I think I am here to learn, and to experience, and to share. But how I go about that, and whom I do it with, is open to the myriad of life's diversity of opportunities. There isn't a right or wrong answer, except in how I choose to label my own experience. I don't have to get stuck in the waiting place, wondering when my next adventure will come along. I'm free to take life on my own terms, knowing that wherever I go I will find opportunities to fulfill my purpose. The responsibility is mine, even if there are angels in the background to whisper advice when I need it.
I'm about to finish up a second degree, and my partner and I are trying to decide where we want to move next. Seattle? Florida? Honolulu? We've discussed all these options and more. But there is great comfort in the fact that we both believe there isn't a right and a wrong answer. Wherever we decide to go we know we will find the adventure we are looking for. The universe gives us all options. We just have to choose to accept the challenge and make the most of whatever we find. We seek out the lessons we need to learn, conciously or not, regardless of what our circumstances are. The difference for me has been to not be afraid to enjoy the ride.
Thanks for a great post.
I'm a theological conservative? How do you figure?
In the most basic sense: you are (as far as I can recall?) a trinitarian, which encompasses not only a very traditional Christian understanding of God, but specifically Jesus as Man and God. This set of most basic traditional Christian beliefs seems to be only lightly held by a great many "liberal Christians" today.
I should perhaps have said, a "theological traditionalist" ;). Sorry to black you with the semantic "conservative" brush--see, I told you I'm stressed (and therefore distracted)!
Also, God as Creator/Designer, still active in the world ... not to mention a theology of sexuality that is practically Roman Catholic (with obvious exceptions) ... a secularist reading here might consider you positively Midieval ;).
Okay, yes, I meet your definition then. I even believe in the virgin birth! (But I don't believe in six-day creation, or in transsubstantiation.)
;).
(For the record, the Catholic Church doesn't Teach 6-day-creation. Transsubstantation, of course, yes ... otherwise we'd be Episcopalian ;). )
god has/had absolutely ZERO to do with your voice, your career, your talents, etc. that's the shittiest part of the whole 'god' delusion - it steals the credit - the REAL, and BEAUTIFUL credit from the humans who actually deserve it. i hope you understand that someday andy: all this great stuff you are - all this talent, all the beautiful things you do, and the way you inspire people, and make them think... all of the awesome things you are -- ARE YOU. it's YOU andy. YOU ARE THE WONDERFUL THING. and YOUR PLAN is all that matters.
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