First of all let me say this: I am very confused by life at this present moment. There are forces at work to promote me and forces at work to demote me.

Jesus says that he came to …”give us life and that more abundantly”.

He also told us (tells us) that the thief (the devil) comes to steal, kill and destroy.

Waking up in the middle of the night and worrying about making a mistake at work (one that you really don’t even know for certain you made) is the work of the enemy of our souls. He will pick an area of uncertainly or insecurity and make you fixate on it so that the only recourse you have is to get up and literally shake it off. You can forget about sleeping through the night.

At the same time, there is scripture telling us that God knows the plans that he has for us, plans to prosper us and not to harm us.

My life seems to be caught in a soap-opera scenario. There is good stuff that happens and bad stuff that happens and it all seems to work out eventually—except while it is happening it seems like I am falling off the edge of the earth.

I remember my political science teacher in freshman year at community college. It was his theory that we would have more than a few significant jobs in our life’s career. Until this time it was generally accepted that you would work the same job, once your found out what it was that you wanted to do, for the rest of your life until you retired and received the gold watch for all your service to the company. I grew up with “Father Knows Best” and  “I Love Lucy” and “Giiligan’s Island”. This pre-disposes me to think that life is very simple and that things will work out.

Destiny as defined by dictionary dot com is: the predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible, course of events.

The question is: Did God create us with a destiny in mind? Do we have at least one over-riding significant purpose that we were born to fullfil? It’s hard to get answers to questions that you hardly know how to ask, but we have to begin someplace.

During a recent business trip, I asked the guy sitting next to me reading his bible, if he thought we had a purpose—a destiny in life we were meant to fullfil. His answer was that he thought that we did and that the question then became to ask God for the tools needed to fullfil that destiny.

In all of this I will have to admit that, in terms of God and destiny, I have separated my natural life (like work and play) from my spiritual life. In other words I guess I have always thought that God works his will out in us through the church which is the body of Christ. Maybe this is why I am sitting in front of the computer at 5:30am in the morning—I haven’t been looking in the right place for the answers to my questions. Or I have been asking the right questions but only looking in so-called spiritual places to find the answers.

In a book entitled “The Great Evangelical Disaster” Frances Shaffer posed a question along this line. His theory is that as a people called the body of Christ, we had missed the point of our purpose and calling. One of his proofs of this happening lay in the fact that we tend to think that doing God’s will involves becoming a minister or a missionary and so on. His point was well made when he postulated that Roe v Wade would not have happened if more Christians had seen their destiny in God fullfilled by becoming lawyers who would eventually wind up on the Supreme Court bench.

He asked the very real question as to who would have more influence: the minister of a small rural flock of 50 people or the editor of the New York Times newspaper. He went on to say that both were very real ministry destinations and that neither path was less “spiritual” than the other.

I know this isn’t something I am going to find the answer to at this very moment—during my journaling and my blogging. But it is the path I am on.

As I write this, I see all of the roads I have been down in my life merging into a great big intersection—the many streams I have been involved with coming to a confluance.

In other words, everything has been leading me to this point—has been directed toward this destination. Inside the church and outside those four walls as well.

Seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened; ask and your questions will be answered.

The road to discovery is exciting—I just hope I have enough air in my tires to keep pedaling.