Was it Meant to Be?

People, especially Americans perhaps, seem to have developed a penchant for using certain phrases to account for the unknown. One such phrase is the universal, catch-all, overused and terribly inaccurate saying, “It was mean to be” or its ugly sister, “It wasn’t meant to be.” Perhaps you have used these phrases in your own life. But, have you ever really given them any thought? In order for something to be “meant to be” or “not meant to be” seems to imply a decision being made that impacts your life in a specific way by someone or something that isn’t you. Is it really plausible to you that God or some lesser spiritual being has already made decisions about how your life will turn out in which you have no say? Sounds a bit fatalistic to me. If events in our lives have already been predetermined for us, what is our role as human beings? And while it is quite easy to explain away our failures and falling short in terms of obtaining our desires by exclaiming, “Maybe it wasn’t meant to be,” it begs the question who is deciding what is meant to be? This notion floating around that humans live according to their fate which presupposes outcomes is absurd. God would never have given us free-will to operate if the game was already fixed. Instead we have great influence on the outcome of things by the things we actually believe. If God has already decided where you will end up, the limits of your success or the outcome in upcoming situations, wouldn’t that be a cruel existence? Why try hard to achieve? Why work tirelessly toward some goal if the end has already been decided? Believing that things are “meant to be” or “not meant to be” simply shifts the results of effort towards some nebulous idea that someone somewhere is controlling events and thus there is no point in exerting any effort. Promoting this logic or worse accepting this logic as true cannot lead to anything but failure or said another way, a whole lot of things that reportedly were not meant to be! Was it meant to be? You decide.

Just to be abundantly clear, God never decides how events are going to turn out. In order to utilize His power in our lives we, by our freedom of will, have to decide to believe His promises to us. God will not and indeed cannot overstep our freedom of will. This explains the question, “if God is so good, why does He allow all of the suffering in the world?” No-one cares more about your individual suffering than God does. Yet He will not overstep your freedom of will. If you cannot get your mind and heart aligned on some promise from His Word, you will not get the results you are seeking. Does He hear your prayers? Absolutely. Does He care about you? Without a doubt. Is He more than willing to help you and provide that which you need most? Without question. Yet, in order to act, in order for Him to “come through” for you, in order to get any circumstance changing result, He requires your cooperation in the form of persuaded belief. To say that some negative outcome couldn’t be changed because it was “meant to be” is a copout at the highest level. Anything and everything can be changed because with God nothing is impossible. That is not to say that there aren’t opposing forces you face always trying to thwart your efforts. Things do not come easily because of this opposition. However, assigning your lack of results to fate or making yourself feel better about not getting something you wanted by assigning it to fate is not wise. There is no such thing as fate. God or “the gods” if you will aren’t sitting up somewhere determining what is going to happen to human lives. Again, how cruel! Instead the leader of the lesser gods wants you to believe just that. If your life has been predetermined, why fight agains the outcomes? Just accept it brother. It was meant to be! In reality you decide. You always decide.

This insane notion that God is moving despite what we believe or do is rampant in our society. “Well, God has another plan” they say. But does He? Sure God knows everything including the future and sure God works to protect us from things we do not see coming, but God works with us not against us. He does not enact plans for our lives in which we have no say whatsoever. Can you imagine doing that to your children? “Sure son, I know what you love and what makes you happiest, but I have another plan for you!” This may happen with people but it never happens with God. God may close a door to preserve us, but if we insist that door will open to our own detriment. If it makes you happy, then it likely makes God happy as well. How incredulous a thought that God would work in you to achieve some desired outcome only to drop you off at the end because of some grand purpose you could not understand. Who makes up these stories? Nothing was meant to be more so than your committed belief and expectation. People are successful because they believe they can be and people are unsuccessful because they believe they cannot be successful. Adding in mysterious fate and predetermination does nothing more than complicate the situation. If you do not believe you have a say, then you do not have a say, no matter how much it contradicts the laws God set up. You always have a say when it comes to your own life. Your say is found in what you believe and you can always change what it is you believe. We all start life on the same rollercoaster. We were all taught trial and error. We all floundered around and did not understand why and how things happened. Yet, when we learn better we do better. Learning better and doing better involves understanding how much your own beliefs determine how your life turns out. Resigning yourself to fate or believing that outside powers control your life will lead you to defeat every time and always. You my friend have to decide.

You can see through error and illogical conclusions simply by asking yourself questions. If it truly wasn’t meant to be, ask yourself who is doing the deciding for your own life. Do you really believe that God who is love and has no darkness in Him at all is working against your own best interests? Do you really believe that life is nothing more than predetermined fate and that you are powerless against the outcome? Does that even make sense to you? The only true power of the human mind is the power to decide. God gave us that power so that we could influence events and have some control over our own lives. Don’t surrender the power that God has given you by believing myths and fairy tales. You have the power to decide what you want and do not want in your life. You, by your decision, can greatly impact how things turn out. God’s people have been doing it for centuries. People have been delivered from a multitude of unfavorable circumstances and they did this be deciding to believe what God says over what things looked like. They did it by recognizing how they voted determined the election and if you can bear it, knowing the election wasn’t rigged. Nothing on earth was already meant to be or not meant to be. Instead we have a choice. We always have a choice. Don’t leave your future to imaginary fate. You decide and act on the strength of that decision. With God’s help you can change any outcome. You can decide and that is the only thing that was ever meant to be.

Just some good thoughts.