I don’t think anyone can fully delve into the idea of destiny in a blog post. It’s more like a conversation. One I’d like to invite you to have with me as a person of purpose--whether we work together on your brand’s PR, I’m your coach, or you enjoy my creative writing--we all end up in search of one thing in life: meaning.
I’ve had conversations with people who believe strongly that we “make our own luck” and that there is no divine plan at work. If there was, how can we explain the traumas? The ‘isms? The injustices? Not only that we see on TV, but that we have faced in our own lives. Sometimes we ask and answer ourselves: “Could this be the divine plan of a sovereign and loving God? No. The only plan is the one I make for myself.”
And I get that. I spent most of my life feeling that way and acting based upon what I believed. I had a set of cards I’d been dealt and the reality is, I didn’t like them very much. I spent my entire life trying to change them--trying to make something different appear--which means that I was not only trying to be a magician, I was really trying to be someone else. That’s a word that really needs to marinate because you can never be everything you were created to be, hoping, wishing, trying deep down to be someone other than who you are.
Of course, that’s not what I thought I was doing. I thought I was just “making it happen.” I was the queen of that. I felt that if good things were going to happen in my life, it was totally up to me. But, the truth is, you can’t accomplish anything big alone and whatever we resist, persists. The more I resisted what already was by trying to make something else be, the more I ran in circles. Instead of evolving--becoming more of myself, I was revolving--doing the very same things over and over again; exhausting myself. Now, the parties involved may have been different. A different guy, a different job. But, it was essentially the same pattern.
If you’re weary right now, this may be why.
And one day, not too long ago, I realized that, I had been trying too hard. The overachiever in me was striving too much. I wasn’t allowing life, and all the things I wanted to flow to me, through me. Love. Abundance. Peace. I was trying to control everything because deep down, I felt safer that way. I was afraid--based on my life’s experiences--that those good things wouldn’t come to me the way I wanted them to.
Now, this Scripture doesn’t say all things are good. It says that all things work together for good in our lives.
The pressure that I created trying to manipulate the good, only constricted and blocked everything I wanted to see manifest in my life. In trying to manufacture my destiny, I was confining it. Limiting it to only what I could see. And I don’t think alone.
What if there is more? Something bigger and better than I or you can imagine for ourselves?
That’s the destiny I believe you and I have. Something beyond our wildest dreams. If only we are willing to let go of the wheel of our lives. There will be many things we have to persevere through. But, I’m willing to play my hand and bet you that taken together with what we’re passionate about, and the purpose we’re here to fulfill that only we can --we will arrive at a place called destiny.
Whether you believe in God, or you don’t. Whether you believe in the same God I believe in, or another, it takes a measure of faith in something to simply live and find meaning in this world. Let’s encourage and support each other in that faith walk, to the place where it all has worked out, for our good.
Passion + Purpose + Perseverance = Destiny