PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

November 16, 2022

LIFE CHOICES

This fall the Sunday school class that Diane and I attend has been using Philip Gulley’s Unlearn God: How unbelieving helped me believe to give focus to our discussion.  In his humorous, anecdotal style Gulley tells of his journey from being a Roman Catholic to a Baptist to a Quaker with several stops in between.  In one chapter Gulley explores the notion that God has a specific plan for each of our lives.

Gulley writes that in spite of the fact that he was told at a Roman Catholic school that God had a specific plan for his life and it was his duty to find it, actually there were a number of things he might have happily done.  In addition it would seem like there were probably a number of women besides his wife who he might have married and with whom he would have been happy.  For Gulley God did not have a specific vocation and wife picked out for him when he was born.

While Gulley does not believe that God has a specific will for people, he does believe For Gulley She has a general will.  God’s general will provides the framework in which each of us makes our life decisions.  When talking about the essential nature of God and His will for our lives, a number of times Gulley quotes the Prophet Micah: “He has told you, O Mortal, what is good and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness (mercy – Gulley’s translation), and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)  In exercising our free will we need to make sure that in all we do is just, shows kindness and mercy, and that we do not let pride take control.  God leaves the specifics of our decisions up to us.

Gulley has one other guideline as to how we might go about discovering our life’s calling.  It comes from a book by one of my favorite authors, Frederick Bueckner.  He writes, “The place God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” (Wishful Thinking, Frederick Bueckner) On the one hand some choose to satisfy only their deep gladness and never experience God’s call.  On the other hand some to meet only the world’s deep hunger and miss the mark.  Personnel needs and the world’s needs are equally important.  One can not pursue one at the expense of the other.

When I graduated from Horace Mann high school in Gary, Indiana, in 1959, there were two paths open which almost guaranteed success: go to work in the steel mills and work or go to college and get a good job.  The expectation was that most of us would work in the mills till we retired or find a job after college that we would keep for many years.  The idea of frequently changing jobs was not an option.

How much different the world is today.  The job that a person gets just out of school may not even exist in ten years.  The job from which they will one day retire may be in a field which will not be developed for twenty years.  Life choices may well be a thing of the past.  Choices continue today even after retirement.  The world is always opening up new possibilities with a variety of ways for our deepest gladness to meet the needs of the world.

While God may not have a specific plan for our lives, I do not think that he is absent when we are about the task of deciding what to do.       He helps us to sort out all of the possibilities and make a choice that is consistent with His will (justice, mercy, walking humbly with God), will bring us satisfaction and will benefit the world in which we live.

(Note: this article was originally published November 24, 2019.)