A Person's Bend (Part 3)

Mind you, this conversation with him was not the first we’d had about the meaning of life and what I wanted to do and how I thought I’d get there and how everything along the way seemed to get me off track or lead me astray. Those are other lessons for another time, but the conversation we had that day was particularly interesting to me because for the first time ever, someone was telling me that I couldn’t do whatever I wanted to do, that there was really only one thing that could do because it was what I was designed to do and until I did it, I would probably continue to be as frustrated with how things were going in my life as I had been up to that point in time.

I’ve always thought that my pastor was particularly wise, but with this thought he had me second-guess whether he had a direct line to God. The apostle Paul was a preacher. He had a rough life. He was beaten and broken and imprisoned and traveled from place to place to place with nothing to rely on but the mercy and hospitality of other people (other than God, of course) to sustain his ministry. I’m certain it was more than difficult, but still he persisted in what appeared to be self-inflicted torture (for it would all have stopped if would have stopped preaching the gospel) because he was compelled to preach. I wondered if Russ was on to something with this one – maybe there is that one thing that we are under compulsion to do because of God’s design and we really can’t do anything but that one thing.

While it is embarrassing to admit, this was probably the very first time that I truly grasped that God’s perspective of things really is entirely different from my own. There is no way we could ever expect it to be otherwise, but for some reason, that had never really sunk in before. How could a all-knowing, all-powerful, divine God see things at all the same as me – the 26-year-old woman who thought she was going through a mid-life crisis entirely too early because she couldn’t apply the meaning of life to her quotidian existence?

Maybe from God’s perspective, there really is only one thing that a person can do, and that thing is exactly what He designed them to do. In the book of Ecclesiastes, it’s laid out pretty clearly: what is crooked cannot be straightened. We’ve all heard the particular expression that describes people as having a particular bend. Certainly there are people who have an artistic bend, people who have a scientific bend. We all know that certain people are predisposed to an interest in certain things and not others. But this particular conversation with my pastor was the first time I’d ever heard the wisdom from Ecclesiastes presented in a manner that applied to people, not situations. People do indeed have bends to them, so who are we to try to straighten them by bristling against all that it requires of us to simply go with the flow of God’s design?

My pastor and I agree that we’re all guilty of trying to straighten other people’s bends though he’s had the chance to witness more people trying to do it to themselves (that’s me) or to others. He says that a lot of people are afraid for some reason to do what God intends them to do, as if we have anything to fear. “If God is for us, who can be against us?” he asks. But he also says that some of the saddest straightening attempts come from well-meaning parents and pastors and elders who often counsel others to be and do and pursue things that are diametrically opposed to what God intends them to be or do or pursue. He used a verse from the Bible to teach me this lesson that I didn’t expect. I’d never seen it used in such a way before. Parents are admonished in the Bible to teach their children the way that they should go so that when they are grown, they will not stray from it (Proverbs 22:6). What if that statement applied not only to a child’s spiritual well-being but to the particular interests and talents of a child?

My pastor explains the idea more succinctly than most people might: until it’s right, it’s wrong. Until you do what God intended for you to do, He will frustrate your every intention and plan. I wonder if this Generation Y drifting is not somehow related to each of us being so far removed from God that we sometimes get lost even when we know we are one of His own.

I think this idea of it being wrong until it’s right applies on a grander scheme too. Until we, as humankind, do what it is God intended us to do, He will frustrate our every intention and plan. My pastor also always says that the reason so many people in the world are unhappy and frustrated is because God has given us all the ability to imagine things a little bit better than they are. The first time I heard him say it, it resonated. It’s so true on so many different levels. I’m unhappy in my marriage because I can imagine a better spouse; I’m unhappy at work because I can imagine a better job; I’m frustrated with the government in America because I can imagine democracy that makes more sense and solves more problems and better represents the people than the one I currently see; I’m unhappy with the state war and welfare in Third World countries because I can imagine a Third World that isn’t so much like the Third World at all. I am not frustrated because of what I have; I am frustrated because I have what I have and I can imagine something better.

The thing is, we’re going to continue to be frustrated by our personal situations because we’re so far removed from what God wants for us. And we’re going to continue to be frustrated by the world that we live in because we’re so far removed from what God wants for us. The idea applies on the macro and the micro. Until we get on board with what God really intended for us, we’ll always work toward an end that is corrupted by the ideas and philosophies of this world.