Today I have been asked to preach on "God's plan for my life – what is it?' Now there are all kinds of questions spring up in my mind when I think about that question. Some of them are less than obvious, and some ar downright disturbing. The cartoon is by way of indicating the question might not be the right question – and therefore the answer isn't so simple it can be reduced to a meme and posted on Facebook.
The following is a theological reflection which doesn't answer these questions, but seeks to put them into a theological framework which asks a deeper question: What kind of God do I believe in? As to whether God has a specific plan for my life, and whether I can or should ever know what it is……well…
Why do I want to know?
Who gave me the right to know what God is thinking and planning?
Does God have "a plan" for my life, like a blueprint, or a loving purpose in creating me to become what in freedom I choose to be?
If God has a plan for my life, can I screw it up, or refuse to follow it?
If I do screw it up or refuse, does that mean from then on nothing that happens in my life is according to God's plan?
If however God's plan for my life cannot be frustrated, does that mean everything that happens, and how my life turns out, was planned from the outset?
So how can it be my life, if God lives it for me, arranges things so that God always wins?
Is God a chess player who cannot be beaten, or a loving presence who guides but does not compel?
You can see by those questions what my underlying hesitation is. I find it difficult to think of God as a divine puppeteer pulling the strings of every human life; or to imagine God as the omnipotent author who can do as he chooses and pleases with the characters and happenings in the plot of his master story; or to believe that God as the one who created human beings in God's own image in love and for love, then overides the freedom and gift that love must always be, in order to get God's way.
And yet. The entire Bible is premised on a God whose purposes are creative, redemptive and life-giving. A God whose purposes of love and whose character as holy love is expressed in mercy and judgement, presence and absence, God as active participant in creation calling all that God has made towards fulfilment and the full potential God intended in the first place. That God has a plan is a fundamental truth of the Bible. But the God revealed in the history of Israel and in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, is eternal creative, outgoing, and self-giving love, seeking through grace and power and love to be eternally faithful to God's own promises.
But that sense of God's purposive love needn't imply that God is inherently coercive, or infinitely manipulative. Omnipotence needn't mean a God who overwhelms the freedom that is God's own precious but risk filled gift. What becomes clear throughout the Bible, and is revealed in definitive finality in Jesus, is that God is love in relation to all that he has made. God is an eternal community of love, a Triune exchange of trustful communion and loving creativity that ever seeks to draw from his creatures an answering love.God is relational, and his purposes are fulfilled within relatedness. God, far from controlling and coercing us into his plan, calls and commands, invites and persuades, his creatures to find their true purpose and highest good in obedience to God.
In that very specific sense God has a deep and enduring purpose for each of our lives. But that is not the same as a God who pre-determines our choices, and compels our obedience; nor does it mean that God has a blueprint which we must adhere to or we will somehow fall out of God's will and miss God's plan for our lives. The idea that God has a plan that is specific, that controls circumstances, and compels our decisions and choices in that direction, would be to reduce God from a relationship of love and freedom, to a God who micro manages our lives like a hyper-efficient line manager of the universe.That is not the God we have come to know through Jesus
Paul's astonishing claim in Romans 8.28 is a remarkably bold statement not only about God, but about the life we all lead, and how God is at work within and beyond our story. Richard Longenecker's translation of this verse is exegetically grounded, theologically profound, and pastorally applied:
"Further, we know that for those who love God, God works all things together for good – that is, on bahalf of those who are called according to His purpose."
It's not true that all things work together for good; what's true is that God works all things together for good for those who love God and are called according to God's purpose. The subject of the sentence is God. And there's that enlightening and liberating word, "purpose"; not plan, not blueprint, not micro-managed existence, but life lived in the Spirit, in response to God's call, and lived by and for the love of God to fulfil God's purpose.
And that purpose is? Well, that is the question we all have to ask, and not once for all, but every day. How do I fit in with God's great purpose of renewing creation, reconciling all things, living out the Kingdom of God, being a light to the world? And in doing that, how do I personally live the life more abundant, be an ambassador of Christ, have the mind of Christ, follow faithfully after Jesus in a world still hostile to a Gospel that honours sacrifice, commands peace-making, hangs loose to money and possessions, loves and welcomes the stranger as Christ, hungers and thirst for justice and righteousness, sees each other person as one whom God created, for whom Christ died and whose worth is indexed to the lengths God goes to redeem, forgive and restore.
What is God's plan for my life? To be who he called me to be. To follow Jesus faithfully. To be transformed by grace and to be a builder of the new community in Christ. It's the responsibility, and calling of each Christian to be alert to those opportunities to serve God, to find the times and places in our own lives to witness for Christ, to be responsive and adventurous in following the leading of the Spirit who draws us towards maturity and new possibilities, to be wise and faithful in discovering and developing our gifts towards the service of Jesus, and to be part of a community of Christ where we grow and discover in prayer, fellowship and discernment, what God wants of us here, and now.
God's plan for your life…what is it? This is what it is.
This the will of God, our sanctification….
Prove that good and perfect will of God by presenting your whole self as a living sacrifice
You are fearfully and wonderfully made, unique and thoroughly and completely known to God
You are called to grow in maturity into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ..
Commanded to abide in Christ and so bear much fruit
Challenged to take up your cross daily and follow after Christ
As to the specifics, the practicalities, how that works out, Michael Ramsey's advice remains true 60 years on: "Jesus challenges his hearers; sowing seeds of truth in their minds and consciences, and then urging them to think out the meaning of it. Think it out, think it out! It is in the process of thinking it out – together with the love and the will and the imagination – that Jesus and his message are made known." (Michael Ramsey)
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