God Does Not Have a Plan For Your Life

This morning, I awoke to the sounds of the “Jeff and Rebecca” on a local Christian radio station. (I admit that classic rock would be more productive for getting me out of bed, but my wife wins.) This morning, Rebecca said something that I have waited from someone other than me to say.

“God does not have a plan for your life.”

Probably not those exact words. But close enough. She elaborated further that God has a plan, and that we have a part in that plan, but it is not a plan for our individual lives.

(Before I continue, I should point out that this may not go where you are thinking. There is too much tied up with this single topic and I will not take the time and effort to make separate posts to provide details on each. Instead, this will provide a broad look at calling, righteousness, the gospel, the great commission, and even the nature of the sermon. Some get only a short mention, but you should understand what I think about it — at least a little. The goal is to see if there might be reason to think a little more about these things. And once those are on the table, there is more to think about. I do not have answers.)

Then when I got up, I started into my typical Monday morning activities which often involve finishing reading through several Christian blogs from the prior week. While I had finished most of that reading on Sunday, there was one article left over by Gene Veith, Restoring the Dignity of Physical Labor. (Not initially on target for this post.)

The post pointed back to a September, 2016 critique by Mr. Veith of a post earlier in the same year by Dani Doriani titled The Power — and Danger — in Luther’s Concept of Work (May 16, 2016). (Dani is a regular part of The Gospel Coalition, a Reformed group primarily of the Presbyterian Church of America, although they provide links to others when you search for churches in your area.)

In the May 2016 post, Dani argues that Luther has treated all vocation, no matter how menial or mind-numbing, as God’s calling. Gene points out in his initial critique that Dani has missed the aim of Luther. In Luther’s day, the term vocation among Christians was generally reserved for the activities of monks and priests. Spiritual vocations. Everything else was simply work. Dani (and presumably many before him) have presumed that Luther meant that there should be no effort to change occupation, or even change the nature of the occupation you already have.

He goes on further to complain that Luther has used several terms interchangeably — office, work, calling, occupation, and position. In his analysis, Luther misses that there is work that may not be a “calling.” While I find this to be a true statement, within the Christian context this is often presumed to be some kind of “calling” by God to certain work.

People love to quote Luther when he says God milks cows through the milkmaid. But if all honest work is a divine call or station, how can we question dehumanizing forms of work? If the servant who cleans stalls hears Luther say it’s “divine” work to lift “a single straw,” that’s comforting. But if lifting straws is labeled a divine call, who dares ask if anyone should lift straws, and if we have found the best way to do it?

It is in the last sentence that I see the beginning of a problem in Dani’s analysis. He refers to a “divine call” which then raises “call” to a higher level. It is no longer simply doing the job you have well, or even obtaining the best job that you can, but is now a job that is the one that has been divinely required (or at least requested).

I do not deny that there are divine callings. We read of several within the gospels and in Acts. But the number who were taught as Jesus moved from place to place was much greater than the number who followed from place to place. Often his charge, especially to those he healed, was something like “go and sin no more.” Go live your life without sin. Not “go live a different life.” Or “drop everything and become one of the disciples” following along the journey. Jesus did tell some to follow him. And dealt with many who sought to follow him.

And we treat His admonitions and the following rejection as being something about salvation rather than about having the call to join in the “spiritual” vocations. The rich man was not told he would die in hell because he wouldn’t give up all his wealth. He was merely told that to be among the disciples, he would need to do so — or at least be ready to if it was demanded.

But herein lies one of the problems with the analysis. We read “disciple” and presume that it is a singular word with a singular meaning. Jesus called disciples, yet many followed that were not called in that way. He spoke one way to the crowds and another to the 12. He spoke to the crowds about their living while he spoke to the “disciples” about leading, shepherding, etc.

Even the so-called great commission was given to the 11, not to the others who had seen Jesus after his resurrection. Don’t presume that I mean that most of us have nothing to do with the commission, but it is not the same as it is to those whose “calling” is to teaching, preaching, missions, etc.

The oft-quoted statement about the gospel — “preach the Gospel at all times; when necessary, use words” — says much about the nature of the gospel. It seems to presume that much of the gospel is silent, or at least not overt. Only when necessary will words be included.

If this is the case, then what is the nature of that “silent” gospel that we are to be preaching? I believe that it is in living the words of Christ found in Matthew chapters 5 through 7. This is consistent with the creation of man — as the image-bearer of God. The alternative implies that life is preordained and geared to give you opportunities to overtly preach the gospel, and that if you don’t follow that plan, you will be unable to carry out God’s calling. And taken further, it implies that the purpose of the Christian is to preach the gospel so that he/she, and as many as he/he can convince to join in, will go to heaven.

In other words, they assert that everyone was called in the “great commission” to be overtly preaching the gospel, and this is what the church should be preparing us for and celebrating as we succeed.

But this was not what was taught from the beginning. We were called to be meek, humble, righteous, peacemakers, and so on. We were mostly told to go and sin no more. This is the preaching of the gospel that mostly requires no words. Yet in our churches we ignore this primary calling and point only to the “if necessary” part of the gospel.

Surely some are called to evangelize. And it started at Pentecost. But from there most remained where they were. It was Peter, James, John, Philip, etc., who we read about doing the work of evangelizing. Then God made a very specific call to one who had not been part of the original 11 when he called Paul. But the record of Paul’s ministry is of going from town to town with only a few companions raising up churches and leaving them there to live the righteous life to which they were called. His letters back to them were generally to provide encouragement to live righteously, not to go out and preach the gospel. They were to treat each other as equals. They were to encourage one another. They were to do what it took to support each other, even when the others seemed weak or “not like me.” They were to be righteous in everything.

So the calling of a Christian is to live the sermon on the mount. It is to embody the character defined in 2 Peter 1, Colossians 3, Galatians 5, and 1 Corinthians 13. It is to demonstrate the character of God which stands in contrast to that of the world.

And it is something that can happen equally from behind the pulpit and the halls of Congress; from corporate boardrooms and behind the counter at McDonalds; from the living of an astrophysicist and a school janitor. It is not a respecter of persons or occupations. It cares not which of three job offers you took. (I am not saying that we should not seek guidance in choosing which job to take, but that it is the seeking that matters, not the choosing. God really may not care which one you choose —only that you seek His input on right v wrong.)

And the thrust of our sermons should be toward the righteous living of the congregation in whatever they do the rest of the week. To engage in “justice” as that word requires from scripture — care for the widow, orphan, and alien. That is more important than hearing a theological treatise on Calvinism v Arminianism. The knowledge we need is of the kind that we can follow, not the kind that we can lob as doctrinal grenades at either Christian “heretics” or unbelievers. Surely we need to understand the basics of our belief. But the amassing of doctrines has been demonstrated to cause division in the body rather than unity.

This is the plan of God. We are not saved for heaven. We are saved for here. The Kingdom of God is not heaven. It starts right now and right here. It is not a kingdom of preachers and evangelists, but a kingdom of people who serve God and bear his image — priests.

Celebrate that in your sermons. The one who turned down the opportunity to cheat a customer, who didn’t honk and shout at all those so-and-so drivers on the road (and then didn't think of then as so-and-sos), who returned the excess change to the cashier, who spent some time at a homeless shelter without the opportunity to “preach the gospel.” And on and on it goes. It is in the multitude of these wordless acts and demonstrations of righteousness that the gospel is preached to the extent that eventually someone will need to use words.