For me, this phrase then leads into the discussion of how involved God is in our own, personal lives. Does he personally direct single people to find each other? Or do people find each other? And what about single people that don’t actually want to stay single? Can we simply say to them, “I guess it’s just not meant to be…”? How about a woman who can’t have kids even though it is her greatest heart’s desire? Is it simply just not “meant to be”?
And who are we to say what’s to be or not to be? That’s my question…
I am curious to know if you have ever said or heard this phrase and your own response to it within the context of faith and trust in God’s direction in our lives...
Duncan says the issue of how do we talk about these things with each other is as important as our theology...
Why is it so difficult to do these conversations well?
It is funny you should bring this up I was sharing about with about this. I had a friend I met in College who believed God told him that he would marry this girl. The story goes is that they at youth and it was a campfire. During the night he thought he heard God as clear as day tell him this was it. He was also told by God not follow her to Prairie Bible College because there would heart ache. He went anyway because he was sure God told him to marry this girl. Sure enough he expressed his feelings and she said no. When enough time had past he asked a second and third time and she had said no. So he stopped asking. When he went to his friends and told them it hurt to much to wait they told him to keep being faithful to his best sense on what God was saying. SO he waited. He told me the hardest thing for him to do was be friendly with the guys she was flirting with. This went on for years. He never really "did" anything other than wait. He respected the level of friendship she wanted to have.
ReplyDeleteWhen I had met them, they were engaged. He told the story I am telling you now and then let me read journal entries. I was very surprised on what I read. Turns out that during the same God was telling him that she was "the one" She was sensing that God was asking her to go out with him. But she fought it. Turns out when she said no she was arguing with God in her journals because he didn't messaure up to the man she wanted. So she spend three years arguing with God about this in her journal listing all the reasons why he's not the man. Her last entry read, "Okay God, Ill give it a try" They are now happily married. with 3 kids pastoring in Salt Lake City.
Even my wife Elizabeth sensed from God that she was suppose to be with me. She waited 7 years on nothing but a "sense" she believed was from God. Elizabeth didn't do anything to make it happen, she couldn't have - I wasn't interested and there was nothing she did to make me interested.
If you ask my friend if God directs people together he would say yes. If you asked my wife she would say yes. If you asked me - I would say God rarely tells people who they are going to mary but that it isn't unheard of. Truthfully I don't know if God picks for you or lets you choose and then approves or its a little bit both. I'm dealing with an issue right now where one of my youth leaders thought God was telling her to wait for this guy and then guy went out with someone else. She's been waiting four years for this guy. She's heart broken.
I know that's one small aspect of God's direction. I personally believe God is involved in the details but he doesn't always tell us which way to go or turn.
God doesn't always tell me what direction to go in life but I try my best to give him the option before I choose. Sometimes he's silent other times he clear as day to me. When it's an issue I feel like God is being silent on or where God is letting me choose I always thinks it s good idea to surrenda the right to choose towards him. I think this honors God. If don't hear anything I just make a choice the best way I know how trusting God will guide me even when He's silent. I don't want to over sensitive to this where we pray for God's will for everything and then we don't move at all.... I don't think that helps. But I also don't want to become arrogant either... just because I'm saved doesn't mean my common sense is somehow more holy than it was before its still flawed and well human.
But if Im reading you right, and you correct me if I'm wrong, but I guess what Im reading, is that its hard to believe, "if its meant to be it will be" because of the disappointment and heartache that come when it doesn't happen?
Dan I think this is a good word, especially because you have relayed stories of pain as well as joy and also the combination. This is so much better than the trite one liners that are so often dished out as Amy experienced, which are ultimately dismissive and deny emotional reality. God's will is often associated with life being good and thing "working" "easily". The cross should teach us it is more complicated. But I continue to struggle with the common requirement of painful process. If I hear God's instruction and follow it, is my most common expectation that it will work/happen/and be good/feel good, if its not or does not I easily become disappointed and resentful, doubtful of the initial "call".
DeleteThe discernment of God's voice is very difficult and delicate thing that some I think take too lightly. Also the discernment regarding the appropriate mix of faith and action, waiting on God and pursuing. This is a similarly challenging process, which I think our culture further complicates...
Stories of pain and joy. I want to affirm what has been said, yet I want to add stories of silence. Silence is my story. God has never been audible, direction has always been open to my own choosing. Life falls into a sequence of chosen events, or choices of non-choice which leads to the acceptance of "come what may". So maybe things are "meant to be" but never have I experienced the knowing of what is "meant to be". I think the biblical stories of wondering capture this. To wander without knowledge of what is "meant to be" makes claims such as Amy encountered difficult to stomach.
ReplyDeleteThe claims of what is "meant to be" can feel like knifes twisted in old wounds, or the pain of a more recent wound. I think that a third option must also be considered, that the answer to some things (almost everything in my life)is open. Things might be neither "meant to be" or "not meant to be". In such things time is on our side. It perpetually pushes us towards the discovery of what happens as time passes. In these stories of silence as I (or you) wander forward, I can only pursue my desires and make the best choices possible. That might mean pursuing a relationship with another individual if I desire that, or it might be taking every option in the pursuit of having a child if that is the desire. I see the act of pursuing our desires in the best way possible as an action of faithfulness to ourselves, as well as to God who places desires and instincts in his created beings.