It is worthwhile running through the checklist you made when you were 18, 20 or 25, when you first identified what you wanted from your life: maybe it read like this: Finish uni; get a good/great job, better car, nice stereo; travel to Europe/Asia/South America; meet Mr/Miss Perfect; get married; buy a house; have 2.6 children; be a stay at home mum/dad (if I can) or have my career take off. If your list looks like this, then it would be similar to hundreds of thousands of other young Australians. In the cold light of day a list like this seems somewhat mercenary, seeking objects, experiences and relationships like mere acquisitions to be checked off a shopping list.
Being purposeful about our lives is what drives us to plan in such a way: we don’t want to have an unchallenging job, unattractive home/spouse/children/car, etc. That’s what differentiates us from other animals – our capacity to choose our futures and to plan to make them real. And most of us go about this ethically and responsibly.
If there is a dimension missing from such lists, it is about the most significant relationship we have from the minute of our conception, to our last breath and thence into eternity itself – with our God. In a life well lived, regardless of the plan, this relationship provides links between each of those moments of significance, of holiness, perhaps even sacraments (with a small ‘s’) – those ritual, grace-filled and grace-fueled moments that are memorialized in photographs, bonds, celebrations and shared grief. John the Evangelist assures us (John 14:18): I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. We are not left to our devices without his presence in and through our relationships.
God has a plan for each of us. As we walk though our lives, his plan becomes ever more clearer. We can look back over our shoulders and see his companionship as we seek to find and explore who and what we are called to be.
Although God’s grace is given freely, God does ask something of us in return: If you love me, you will keep my commandments (John 14:15), that is, love God and love your neighbour. If this is the way I have lived my life, then I can be assured that the choices I set my sights on will be blessed, successful and a hymn of praise to the God who loves us.
Hear now, all you who fear God,
while I declare what he has done for me.
Blessed be God who refused me not
my prayer or his kindness!
Psalm 66
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