"I always thought that there was this one perfect person for everybody in the world, you know, and when you found that person the rest of the world kind of magically faded away, and, you know, the two of you would just be inside this kind of protective bubble, but there is no bubble, I mean if there is you have to make it, I just think life is more than a series of moments, you know, we can make choices, and we can choose to protect the people we love, and that's what makes us who we are and those are the real memories"
-Forces of Nature
So it's not that I think movies offer a lot of truth or something, but here's why I quote that...
I mentioned before that I stressed about deciding what school to go to, but God is down either path. God is with me wherever I go... He is going to take care of me. That's the same with choosing what I do after I graduate now. I've applied two places: an environmental school and an internship at a non-profit in DC. Let's say I get accepted both of these places. *crosses fingers* I believe that I could go to the environmental school, and God would be there, and that would offset a set of events. Or I could go to the internship, and God would be there too, and that would just offset a different set of events. And if it is predestined that I do one of those... how could I ever make the wrong decision? Wouldn't whatever decision I make be the correct one? But obviously I have to apply places and make a choice--take some action--because if not, nothing is going to happen.
If I don't choose to cultivate relationships, I won't have any.
If you take someone like Mother Theresa... this amazing woman prayed and said, "God tell me where you want me to go, and I will go without delay." She felt called to go to Calcutta when she was on a train, and so when she got back to her nunnery or whatever it's called, she got right to action and asked permission to leave. They didn't let her go. But she didn't stop trying. I say all this to say that Mother Theresa is all about action.
I just think it is dangerous to say that everything is predestined because doesn't that make you just feel like you should just sit back and let things happen to you? But if you never move, you just stay where you are. And if you never move, you are making a choice; the choice is inaction.
1 comment:
Action or inaction isn't a question for predestination.
Believing that "you should just sit back and let things happen to you" is not predestination, but rather fatalism. Fatalism has no author, no personal being behind it. It's "what will be, will be" without respect to your actions.
Predestination, however, is belief that God shapes, moves, and rules His creation how He sees fit.
I could be wrong, but this sounds like a reaction post to what I wrote; if that's the case, I'll just repeat part of what I wrote there: I was mainly concerned with showing that even in my discontentment, sadness, loneliness, etc, God's predestining, sovereign providential work didn't go wrong, and He still does, in fact, rule over my life, even where I am now.
Post a Comment