I periodically struggle with the Christian-ese concept of “God’s plan for my life”. It’s one of those catch phrases that folks tend to throw about without much understanding or meaning. The general sense is that God has a ‘Grand Plan For Each of Us’ and it probably involves selling all possessions in order to become a missionary somewhere in Africa.
I don’t feel ‘called’ to go to Africa. Does that mean I’m rejecting God’s plan for me? Is there a plan for me?
The other day someone told me that that God spoke to him in dreams. I know several people who claim to have visions or receive “words of knowledge”. I won’t deny that God can communicate in this way, but I guess I tend to be a skeptic. Too often it comes across as “here’s what I want to do, and I’m invoking God to justify it”.
Maybe my skepticism is because I’ve never gotten such a direct communication from God.
Then I come across passages like this:
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit.” (John 15:16, NIV)
That’s a pretty direct statement that God does have an intention for my life. My calling is to go and bear fruit. That may mean that I need to go to Africa, but maybe it simply means that wherever I am, I am to bear fruit. And lately I’ve come to understand that living a Christ-like life (i.e., bearing fruit) means serving and meeting the needs of others.
I’m good with that, even if I have to go to Africa to do it.
