The Gospel According to Gump: Destiny
This is a really powerful clip, and it
is capped by one of the most powerful and deep lines in the entire movie. Do we
all have a destiny, or are we all just floating around like on a breeze? Are
our days ordered, you know, are we just puppets in the grand scheme of things
and God has already decided what we are going to do and how we are going to do
it and who we are going to marry and what our job will be and when we’ll die
and what we’ll die of? You know, is that all set in stone, or do we have some sort
of say in all of it? How much of a role does God play in our every day lives?
Like did God sit down millions of years ago before I was even born and write a
little book about everything I would do, and that’s just what is unfolding
before you? I can just see God sitting at his desk writing down, “Dan will wake
up at 7:25 this morning and his left arm will be asleep. He will stumble down
the stairs and start the coffee maker. While reading the paper, he will laugh
at Beatle Bailey.” I don’t know, maybe He’s got it detailed out like that.
We call this idea providence. It’s the
idea that God has control over everything. The idea that God has ordered the
world to work a certain way and everything is unfolding according to his word.
And we love the idea of providence, the idea of a big God taking care of
everything and watching out for us, until something bad happens. Until tragedy
strikes. And then we say, woah, woah, woah, time out. Something is not working
right here.
And funerals are the places where this
debate rages the strongest, right? Maybe a little girl is killed by a drunk
driver. And the parents are standing there grieving and a family friend comes
up to them and says, “It was her time. God is in control. All things will work
together for good.” And you know, maybe the parents are really comforted by
these words. But I think there is an equally good chance that this would enrage
them. “If God is in control, if He is behind my little girl’s death, then he is
not all-loving and he is not all-good. If he purposefully took her life and
left us in this nightmare, then he is cruel.” And maybe another family friend
hears and agrees, “The drunk driver alone is to blame, and God is as saddened
as you are that this happened. He just wants to comfort you now.”
This is tough, right? This is
confusing stuff. Because here’s what we know about God: we know that God is
all-powerful, and all-loving, and all-knowing, and all-good, and ever-present.
Right? We agree on these things? God is a big, strong, smart, powerful God. So
does that mean that he orders every single event in our lives, or do we act on
our own? Or in the words of Forrest, do we all have a destiny, or are we all
just floating around like on a breeze?
To make an attempt to answer this
question – and by the way, I’m not going to pretend that we’ll answer it fully
today, it’s a debate that has been raging for centuries and centuries – but to
make an attempt to answer this question today, I want us to go back to the
scripture passages that were read for us earlier. The first one is about Hagar.
Now if you don’t know the story of Hagar, basically she is Sarah, as in Abraham
and Sarah, she was Sarah’s maid servant. And as was customary in that day,
Sarah went to Abraham and said, “Look, I’m old. Too old to have kids. We don’t
have anyone to carry on the family name. So go sleep with my servant Hagar so
you can have an heir.” Abraham at this point does apparently does not put up
much of a fight. There’s no verse in there that says, “Oh, no, baby, you’re the
only one for me,” or any of that. No, he goes and sleeps with Hagar, and Hagar
gets pregnant and when Sarah finds out that Hagar is pregnant, she starts to
get jealous and mistreats her, and Hagar ran away. But God finds her and says,
look, you’re going to have a son and I’m going to greatly increase his numbers.
Basically, I’m watching out for you, I’ll take care of you, even you, Hagar, an
Egyptian maidservant.
Now Hagar was not some sort of devout
Jew, those didn’t even exist yet. She had Egyptian roots and probably believed
in many gods. And she didn’t know which god it was that had just spoken to her,
but she gave him a name. El Roi – the God who sees me. What a powerful name –
the God who sees me, even me.
And David I think captures this idea,
this thought, in Psalm 8, and let me read it for you again: “O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the
heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because
of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.”
Now listen to this: “When I consider
your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have
set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you
care for him?” Do you hear that? Who am I that you are mindful of me? You who
have made the heavens.
In our Sunday School class the last
two weeks we’ve been watching this video by a guy named Louie Giglio, and he’s
just talking about how incredibly huge the universe actually is. How vast it
is. How we are like a speck of dust in our own galaxy, which is one of billions
of galaxies that came into existence when God said, “Let there be light,” and
WOOSH this huge universe comes just flying out of his mouth and into existence.
And if the universe is that big, guess what, that means we are really, really,
REALLY small. We are tiny. Who are we that God is mindful of us? We are not
that significant. And God is huge beyond anything we can imagine.
Now there was this guy named Job who
in the Bible was going through some pretty rotten stuff. I mean, he lost
everything, and he had a lot to lose. He lost livestock, his house, his health,
even his children. And he starts questioning God and saying, “Hey! What gives?
Why are you letting this happen to me? I thought you were all-power and
all-loving and all-knowing. Why are you letting these bad things happen to me?
I’m a good man?” And in Job 38 God responds and says, “Hey Job…can you hold the
stars in the palm of your hand? Can you move the constellations around as you
please? Because…I can. Now I’m sorry…did you have a complaint you wanted to
bring forward? Some mistake you think I’ve made?” And Job just says, “I am
unworthy – how can I reply to you?”
I think, maybe for the first time, Job
grasped his insignificance. How small he really is. And folks, I think maybe
that’s our problem with the whole question of providence. Maybe our problem is
we think we are bigger than we really are.
When I think about what my destiny
might be, or when you think about what your destiny might be, what do you think
of? What do you think about what God has planned for you? Like a certain job or
what your family will look like or what great things you will do or how long
you’ll be remembered after you die?
Back in high school I was really into
genealogy, and I still am, and I traced my family’s genealogy way back into the
1400’s. And it was so cool. But I remember at one point I got kind of sad,
because these people were good people. I uncovered old newspaper articles about
some of them and found old journals, and these were some really interesting,
good people who would have been considered very important in their day. But it
only took a couple of generations for them to be forgotten. And if I hadn’t
uncovered their history, they may have been forgotten forever. Good people. But
gone, and I’m sure someday, forgotten forever.
Folks, I don’t want to burst your
bubble, but if you want a good look at what your destiny is, that’s it. You all
are good people, but someday, you and I will die. And our friends and family
will remember us, but then they’ll die too and someday we’ll all be forgotten.
And the things we strived so hard for in life will be meaningless. 100 years
from now, no one will care that you were made assistant general manager of the
regional office. 100 years from now, people won’t remember if you got cancer
and died at age 82, or had a heart attack when you were 90. They won’t remember
that you were responsible for making the best apple pie in town, having the
nicest lawn or any of that. People aren’t going to remember us for very long.
Think about it: the people who live
the longest live to be just over 100 years old. We have a God who has no
beginning or end. He has been around forever. Our lives are like a fleeting
vapor, a blip on the radar of history.
And we spend our time crying out to
God for things like health, and wealth, and fame, and companionship. We spend
all of our time focused on these things. And we pray, “Oh, God! I need better
health! Because if I’m healthy, I can work harder, which will help me get more
stuff and I’ll be able to have a wife or a husband, and someday, I’ll REALLY
make a difference in the world!”
And here’s the clincher folks: God,
our God, this infinitely huge, awesome, powerful God, hears those prayers. And
he answers them. Because you know what? I believe God does have a plan for us.
Jeremiah 29 tells us that he does, when he says, “I know the plans I have for
you! They are plans to prosper you and not to harm you! Plans for a hope and a
future!”
And we hear that and we say, “YES!
Gimmie Gimmie Gimme! Prosper me!” And God says, “No, no, no, you don’t
understand. You’re thinking small. You think what you want is big, but it’s
small. Your job, your relationships, your fame and popularity, those are all
nice, ok things. But I grant your prayers for one reason: I have a plan to
prosper you, a plan for hope. A plan for a future. AND NONE OF THAT HAS
ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE NOW. I grant your prayers, because A) I’m good
and I like to do good things, but mostly because B) I’m trying to get to you
and your heart. My plan for you is to have you here with me. My plan for you, I
have ordered your life in such a way, not that you would be successful or
famous or rich, but that you can’t help but notice me and see me and my love
for you.
And we say, “But God, then why do you
let all these bad things happen?” God
says, “Woah, woah, I knew you’d ask that question. That’s why I answered
it in the first two chapters of the book, of the Bible. Everything was perfect,
but sin came into the world. So because sin is in the world, now there is
disease and there is war and there is hurt and there is famine and there’s
death. Basically, in this world, you will have trouble, but take heart! I have
overcome the world! And I have ordered your life in such a way that you can’t
miss me and my goodness and my love for you.”
Folks, I don’t know how much God
knows, He knows way more than me. I don’t know if he knows that there were 217
Cheerios in my bowl this morning, like he ordained that I would eat 217
Cheerios, but I have a suspicion that that sort of stuff is up to us. But God
has the ability and exercises his ability to step in and order stuff that gets
us to notice him. God uses his providence when he knows that a certain
situation is critical in the formation of our relationship with him. So like
when you are pleading with God for a job, and he answers that prayer, he
doesn’t do it just because he wants you to have money and have a comfortable
life. He answers that prayer so that you will know that he is good and that he
loves you and he wants you with him forever.
When you pray for healing, and God
grants you healing, it isn’t because your health is in some way critical to the
legacy you will leave here on earth. He answers that prayer so that you will
know that he is good and that he loves you and he wants you with him forever.
When he answered Hagar and he reached
out to her in her distress, it wasn’t because he was going to use her son on
some great evangelistic mission or anything like that. It was just to show her
that he is good and he loves you and he wants you with him forever. Are you
getting the picture yet?
So you know, maybe Forrest Gump was
right. Like both destiny and free choice are happening at the same time. But
our destiny isn’t an earthly destiny, our destiny is a heavenly appointment
with our God who is using the world to show us how much he loves us, so that we
may choose him and fulfill our destiny, his plan for us, by spending eternity
with him.
Folks, it’s time to let go of our plan
for our destiny. God has a much greater plan for us than anything we’ll
experience here. We cannot be so set in stone as to what our future and our
lives are going to look like. There has to be room for God’s providence, his
power to shape and transform our lives so that we may experience and grasp his
love and never let go of it.
Look, maybe you’ve been trying to make
God’s plan for you mesh with your own plan. Maybe you’ve been saying things
like, “God, I know you have a plan for me, but what is it?” And God reveals to
you what that plan is, but you say, “No, God, that’s too much. I can’t do that.
What’s your other plan for me? You know, the one that involves prospering me?”
You’ve been pushing back and your not letting God shape your life and mold you
into what you were meant to be, which is a beautiful relationship with him.
It’s as if we are lumps of clay and he is the potter, but we’re trying to tell
him what shape to make us into and we keep resisting him, because we think we
know what’s best. Today, maybe it’s time to let that go, and just put yourself
into the potter’s hand.
Pastor
Dan Metzger
Van
Buren United