DIVINE DESTINY
Divine destiny is to ascribe God’s pre-meditated intent in all the activities that unfold in our lives. Is divine destiny real? David’s words certainly do indicate so.
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be (Psalms 139:15,16)
Divine destiny is in keeping with the understanding of God’s sovereignty that is taught in the Bible.
I know that the LORD is great, that our Lord is greater than all gods. The LORD does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths (Psalms 135:5,6).
God’s sovereignty is to state that God is all-powerful and uses his authority to do whatever pleases him. There is nothing that ever happens without his knowledge or will. Every single act that works out on earth and every single breath that is inhaled takes place with the consent of God. He is not a lame God who is left helpless in the face of circumstances and schemes that people make, but exercises his authority to accomplish his will. When Jesus reminds his disciples that it is God who feeds the birds in the sky and that not a single hair on their heads would fall to the ground without the knowledge of God, it a reference to the sovereignty of God.
The question that immediately pops up in response to God’s sovereignty would be, ‘Is God also responsible for the suffering and evil that we see around us?’ Suffering can be ultimately traced to the bad choices that man makes, or has made over many generations. These bad choices are what the Bible calls as sin. If man had never sinned, this world would have been a perfect place and suffering and death would not have entered the realm of human experience. However, God did make man with a free will and he chooses not to deny man his free will just to ensure that there would be no imperfection. And so we do find imperfection, suffering and death in this world. God in his sovereignty does take vicarious responsibility for it though he did not cause it. Jesus coming down to earth to die for man’s sins and bring him back to God is an act that arose out of God taking vicarious responsibility for the suffering and death that we see in our world.
Finally, divine destiny is in keeping with the eternal nature of God. We live within the confines of time; in other words, we grasp only the present, having exhausted the past and being uncertain about the future. However, God sees the past, the present and the future all together because he is beyond time. And so it is not unreasonable to say that he knows every single moment of our lives even before any of them even came into being.
It is appropriate to remind ourselves that divine destiny or God’s sovereignty or the eternal nature of God cannot be fully understood by our finite minds. There will always be an element of mystery in our attempt to understand it. But divine destiny is a source of great encouragement for one going through difficult times or struggling to find meaning in his life. It reassures him that no pain or sorrow is too difficult to bear because behind it is a God who knows and has allowed it for his ultimate good. Divine destiny is not easy to comprehend, but for one who believes, it his greatest treasure.
