Karma, fate, kismet, serendipity. Is life just an accidental roll of the dice? Is it all just random events taking place and we are a victim of circumstance? Who are we and why are we here? Really these are probably questions for when I have had more coffee, but this has been on my mind lately.
If we are children of God then we are not random, we are not mistakes, we are not purposeless. We were known by Him before we were in our mother's womb (Jeremiah 1:5). We were then formed by Him, Psalm 139:13-14, "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well," (ESV). So He foreknew us, and in Romans 8:29 it says that He also predestined us. Predestined us for what? To be conformed into the image of His Son. We have a destiny to fulfill according to His plan. What do those words mean? Predestine, according to the English Oxford dictionary means "(of God) destine (someone) for a particular fate or purpose". And the word destiny means "the particular state of a person or thing in the future, considering as resulting from earlier events," according to the Cambridge Dictionary.
So we are predestined for a particular purpose and we have destiny to fulfill because of that predestination. The scripture says that we are predestined to be conformed or tailored into the image of Jesus. What a beautiful picture that is. My grandmother was wonderfully skilled seamstress. She could take any piece of clothing, be it a uniform or a piece of designer couture and she could replicate that outfit so well that you could not tell the copy from the original. That is what God wants to do in us. He has a destiny in mind for us, and at the crux of that destiny is that we would be an accurate facsimile or likeness of His Son. I think when we hear the word destiny we tend to think of lofty ambitions, driven by our own steam and our own ideals. A destiny designed by God is just the opposite. As we continue to read in Psalm 139:15-16, "My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them" (ESV). God foreknew us, He predestined us, He wrote out our days for us. Again, He wants us to be fit into the image of Jesus, which first means coming to salvation through Him. What that entails is accepting that Jesus is the Son of God, born of a virgin, who lived a sinless life, died on the cross, rose again and is now in heaven interceding for us. That is the first step to fulfilling our destiny in Him. And that is what it is all about. Living our lives in Him, through Him, and for Him. What comes next is following Jesus' command of loving God first and then loving others. If we love God we will seek His will, if we love others we will begin fulfilling His will. We then need to seek in His word for wisdom to live daily and we need to seek through prayer what our purpose is. We were all made with specific giftings, specific talents and specific abilities. He equips us, as it says in Hebrews 13:21, "may he equip you with all you need for doing his will. May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to Him," (NLT). So it is His good pleasure to not only tell us what His will is for us, but to equip us to do His will. His will is for us to do good works, Ephesians 2:10, "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do," (NIV).
When you look at it that way, it seems that our God-given destiny is not out of reach. Another important step in fulfilling our destiny in God is timing. I really like what Pastor Tony Evans has to say about destiny; "God will often take you from where you are to where He wants you to be at what can be called a divine intersection. This is the time and situation in your life where your gifts, skills, passion, experience and personality merge together into either the revealing of, or carrying out of, your destiny.
What many of us try to do in our lives is rush ahead to the intersection, not realizing the importance of God’s perfect timing. Until your divine intersection comes, God is preparing you for that moment – for the people, tasks and purposes ahead. And He is also preparing your destiny, the people and places involved, for you. This is similar to what He did in Canaan when the Israelites entered the Promised Land. God had already provided for the Israelites because the Canaanites had dug the wells, cultivated the land and built the communities in that land.
Friend, if you learn anything at all from Scripture about reaching your destiny – learn this: Don’t go searching for your destiny. Go searching for your God.
Because it is in locating God amidst the ordinary things that He may have you doing now that you will watch Him intersect them into the extraordinary purpose and destiny He has for you. In other words, fulfill the duties of your routine responsibilities and attach those routine responsibilities to Him. When you loop God into your routine, the natural becomes the supernatural.
What is even better, is that you will discover that God can even use the weaknesses, or what you might consider the faults, in your life for His purpose. He merges all things together for good when you love Him and walk in His destiny for you."
We often confuse destiny with destination. Our lives are more than our receiving salvation thereby gaining entry at the end of this mortal life into heaven. Our life is marked by our journey here. What we do, what we speak, how we love. Everything we do is important to God. Colossians 3:17, "And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus," (NLT). "So then, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of [our great] God," 1 Corinthians 10:31 (AMP). All that we do, if we are doing it with the Father's heart will glorify Him.
Thomas Merton wrote in No Man Is An Island, “For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God's will, to be what God wants us to be.” And what God wants us to be is the representation of Jesus to this world. So we as children of God love Him, love His people, read His word, seek His will, and rest in His timing. But our rest is not idle; it is active. Actively doing all we can to spread abroad the light of His love, for as 1 Peter 4:7-11 says, "Everything in the world is about to be wrapped up, so take nothing for granted. Stay wide-awake in prayer. Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything. Be quick to give a meal to the hungry, a bed to the homeless—cheerfully. Be generous with the different things God gave you, passing them around so all get in on it: if words, let it be God’s words; if help, let it be God’s hearty help. That way, God’s bright presence will be evident in everything through Jesus, and he’ll get all the credit as the One mighty in everything—encores to the end of time. Oh, yes!" (MSG) God's bright presence will be seen in us, His children of destiny.
Quote from Pastor Tony Evans found at http://tonyevans.org/tony-evans-destiny-god-s-calling/