Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.
For when David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed. ~Acts 13:36 (NIV)
Free will and predistination are two sides of the same coin. I believe in both. However, I tend to take a "larger view" of predistination. I do not believe that it was just chance or "luck of the draw" that I was born when and where I was. One time I was driving through the back streets of Saltillo, Mexico at night with a van load of college students. Looking out the window at some kids playing in the street, one of the students said, "My life would have been so different if I'd been born here." It doesn't take much to change what our lives could have been. I believe that it was by design that I was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1954 rather than in a small village in China in 1954 or 1654 or 2654. I was born to be an American Baby Boomer. Well, no complaints there. We created the greatest pop music history.
Nor was it by chance, but by design, that I was born into the family that I was born into. Here is where I had problems with "God's design" for decades. Don't get me wrong--I love my family, especially my Mom. But God could not have made me the product of a more dysfunctional group of people if He'd tried. "Life made better through chemicals" was the motto. Chain smoking, alcoholism, and prescription drug addiction flowed like a flooded river through my family. So did extra-marital affairs. And add to that a step-father who was not only a raging alcoholic, but physically abusive. I lived in terror from the second grade till I was 17, and endured a lot of beatings, not to mention verbal abuse. My Mom, co-dependent and totally self-involved, allowed it as well as endured it along with my sister and me.
I would look at other kids and their families and wonder, Did God love me less? Why didn't He put me in that family instead? Why was I sentenced to spending a good portion of my life dealing with being an abuse survivor, plagued with both fears of abandonment and of being overwhelmed, along with anger, insecurity, and a fear of everything? Is this God's love? Honestly, for the majority of my life I thought that I got the short end of the stick by being born Steve Gillihan. For me, that was one of the big mysteries of my life--why was I born to be ME? It was a sore point in my spiritual life.
Honestly, I have more baggage than United Airlines.
On the other hand, I have never met anyone who does not have baggage from their family. Some have more than others, but we all have it. My parents generation had a simple solution: Forget about it and go on. Yeah, like THAT works! When we suppress and repress, it's like shoving food to the back of the fridge. It may be out of sight, but after a while, it stinks like crap.
It has been through God's love and grace that I have spent my adult life unpacking, sifting through, and sorting out the baggage. In the process, God has brought a great deal of healing into my life. I have seen Him do miracles. But He has also lead me to "do the hard work" of facing the stuff in my life. He has brought the right authors I've needed at just the right time, brought the right teachers and counselors, and gave me an incredibly understanding and supportive wife. During the past year and a half of Clinical Pastoral Education, I have finally stopped believing that being me was the short end of the stick. God has worked all things together for me to attain a love for myself, confidence, and fear's ever-lessening hold on my life.
I no longer ask "why did God do this or that," or why He "alllowed this or that." He does not explain Himself to me anymore than He did to Job. And I can believe and serve a God who feels no requirement to explain Himself to me. That's faith. So now instead of asking "God, why did you allow...?" I ask, "Okay, what do You want to do with this in my life? How can this help me serve Your purpose in my generation?"
Because nothing is wasted in God's economy. Not even baggage.
Your Fellow Traveler,
~Steve
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