Best Laid Plans

This is from my journal, an entry almost two years old (April 10, 2007), but I have slowly been adding other thoughts to it - the page is crazy with scribbles in all directions in the margins - and I think now is as good a time as any to pull it all together into a blog post. The timing is rather relevant to a discussion I had a couple weeks ago with Bre in which we touched on God's plans for us and purpose, and our Torah Portions group has talked about it before.

So, without further ado (because for what in the world do any of us need more ado?)...

I don't care it it means my tastes are common: I love C.S. Lewis. The Chronicles will always have a special place in my heart.

One of the ideas that has stuck with me from the Chronicles is that we are not to know what might have been if we'd chosen a different path. And with Don Miller's speech regarding story very much in my thoughts, here is what is going on between my ears...

For a long time, I have lived with the impression (how or when I received it, or from whom, I don't know) that God made me for one shining purpose, and I had to seek out His will for my life so I could fulfill it. This quest sounds noble and romantic, but it's incomplete. Worse yet, it's deceptive. Not in the sense that the idea of living to glorify God is wrong, but in the sense there is one specific path to take.

I have wasted a lot of time thinking my quest was an absolute, and living in fear of making wrong or selfish choices based on what I wanted. I also need to get over the fear that I've already made the wrong choices and I'm doomed to a life of mediocrity because I screwed up God's plot.

The truth is that choices shape plot, taking it in different directions and writing the story forward. Even not choosing is a choice, but it leads to a stalled story. I'm all for the "be still and know that I am God" part of faith - waiting and trusting is important - but there's a big difference between being still and being stagnant. Stagnancy breeds the potential for illness - standing water becomes foul.

Ever since I became aware of mikvahs and their significance (and how interesting it is that mikvah is also a word for hope?), the idea of moving water meaning living water has intrigued me.

The existence of a mikvah is considered so important in Orthodox Judaism, that an Orthodox community is required to construct a mikvah before building a synagogue, and must go to the extreme of selling Torah scrolls or even a synagogue if necessary, to provide funding for the construction.
-- Berlin, Meshib Dabar, 2:45

While I would love to delve more just into the importance of the mikvah, I will just leave it at this - how beautiful the thought of being a mikvah.

Back to story, choices, and plans... Part of the problem is we quote Jeremiah 29:11 too often - as a comfort, an excuse, a brain-washing mantra, etc. Beyond the issue of taking the verse out of its context, there is the automatic assumption of God's plan being specific (and for this side of the veil). But all of the intentions listed are vaguely benevolent, what you would expect a loving God to say to anyone.

While I'll never know what might have been if I'd been bolder and more ambitious earlier on in my life, I am still faced with choices that will either propel me toward following the desires of my heart or continue to hold me back.

Still, despite all this that I think... I want to be meant for something, to have specific purpose. A destiny of my own. But why do I want this, beyond this longing that nearly everyone I've ever met shares with me? Perhaps I want to be told who I am because it's easier than discovering my identity myself. Being told removes doubt, removes free will, removes risk. And removes the ultimate purpose underlying the personal purpose.

Of course, there's also the question of what the desires of my heart are... and the fears that are holding me back. To be continued...