Copyright © 2006 Ron Schwartz
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Destiny

Not all of us are born with eyes, not everyone is born with hands or feet, and not all people are born intelligent.  But there is one inescapable thing with which each of us are born that weaves in and out of the fragments of time like a silver thread, that pursues us like a hunter our entire life.  We can never escape it, we can never be free from it, and only when we give into it do we truly find peace and fulfillment.  It is our destiny!

May 31, 2006

By Ron Schwartz

Destiny is not something we pursue.  It pursues us.  Destiny is not the simple result of chance - that is to say, it isn’t the consequence of our decisions.  Destiny is a silent pursuer.  It is a lioness that patiently stalks her prey, waiting for the opportunity to bring it under her control.  We can run from our destiny, but we can never escape it.  It will find us, and when it does, we will be forced to deal with it.

God spoke to my heart last week and said, “You cannot be your best until you’re doing your best.”  He then went on to show me that in each of our lives there is a place wherein we are at our “best.”  With some of us, it is music: our singing, playing an instrument, or ability to compose.  With some of us, it is our creativity. Yet with some, it is that simple ability to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen.  As our lives change from child to student to employer and employee to spouse and parent, and so on, our best remains the same.  It pursues us unrelentingly.  We often do not understand it’s value, and so often we run from it.  In doing so, we deny it the place in our lives that it must have.  It is not necessarily something we enjoy and desire, but it is our best. 

In the scripture, those who became the people God destined them to be eventually embraced their destiny.  They came to understand their “best” and embraced it passionately.  In giving in to its pursuit, they shone in the destiny for which they were born.  As you consider the following people of the scriptures, consider your own life and the destiny that pursues you:

David, the Poet

Some people knew David as a shepherd.

1 Samuel 16:11 KJV

And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither.

Some people knew him as a fugitive.

1 Samuel 27:1-4 KJV

1 And David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul: there is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines; and Saul shall despair of me, to seek me any more in any coast of Israel: so shall I escape out of his hand.

2 And David arose, and he passed over with the six hundred men that were with him unto Achish, the son of Maoch, king of Gath…

Some people knew him as a mighty warrior.

2 Samuel 8:1-3 KJV

1 And after this it came to pass, that David smote the Philistines, and subdued them: and David took Metheg-ammah out of the hand of the Philistines.

2 And he smote Moab, and measured them with a line, casting them down to the ground; even with two lines measured he to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive. And so the Moabites became David's servants, and brought gifts.

3 David smote also Hadadezer, the son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he went to recover his border at the river Euphrates.

1 Samuel 21:11 KJV

And the servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David the king of the land? did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?

Some people knew David as the king. 

2 Samuel 5:1-4 KJV

1 Then came all the tribes of Israel to David unto Hebron, and spake, saying, Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh.

2 Also in time past, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel: and the LORD said to thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel.

3 So all the elders of Israel came to the king to Hebron; and king David made a league with them in Hebron before the LORD: and they anointed David king over Israel.

4 David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years.

David was many things to many people, but to God, he was a poet.

Throughout all the changes that took place in David’s life, throughout all of his achievements and failures, throughout all of the joy and the pain he endured, there remained one constant that followed him unrelentingly: his poetry.  It is interesting that had it not been for the Book of Psalms, we could read about the life of David in 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel and never know of his poet’s heart.  These books are filled with his achievements and failures, they expose his inward struggles, they describe all his challenges and misfortunes, but they fall short when it comes to describing the true nature of his heart, for above all the accomplishments attributed to him in the two books of Samuel, David was first and foremost a poet.  As the seasons of his life changed, as his occupation and vocation changed, his poetry remained unvarying.

David’s destiny was not to rule the kingdom of Israel (although this is the work God gave him to do) because destiny pursues us our entire life, and his kingship was only a portion of his life.  David’s destiny is found in his poetry.  It is in the words of his poetry that we see what God saw when He proclaimed him a man after His own heart.  It is through his poetry that his character is realized.  David’s passion for God was unquenchable.  His respect and love for God stands as a monument for us today.

When David lived as a fugitive, on the run from Saul, he lifted up his eyes to God and poured out his heart through his poetry. Do you suppose he knew that for the next three thousand years, millions of God’s servants who suffered adversity would find solace in his writings?  This was probably the last thing on David’s mind, but it was in the forefront of God’s.  The legacy of David’s life is not just the kingdom he created but the poetry he left for us.  It has stood for three thousand years as a memorial to the passion and love of a person who loved God unconditionally.  It has blessed and changed millions of lives.  This is the power of destiny!

Paul, the Revelator

We first meet Paul in the book of Acts as a noble and respected young man who “kept the raiment of those that slew him [Stephen], Acts 22:20.” 

Acts 7:55-59 KJV

55 But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,

56 And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.

57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord,

58 And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul.

59 And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

Paul was educated as a Pharisee and pursued this course for his life.  He saw himself as a defender of the faith of Israel and persecuted those who were a threat.   Moreover, he was born a Roman citizen.  This gave him an autonomy that many of the other Jewish leaders could only envy.

Acts 8:1 KJV

And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles.

Paul was popular.  All the true Jews and Jewish leaders respected and admired Paul.  Paul consumed himself in his studies, learning everything that was available to him.  He was accepted and approved of by his teachers and peers.  He versed himself in the errors of Greek philosophies and became knowledgeable in Gentile cultures.  God had Paul’s passion and his heart.  But pursuing him unrelentingly was the true calling of his destiny.  It was the one inescapable thing from which he tried so hard to free himself.  Paul was called to learn from the wisdom and revelation of God.  That was his destiny.

Paul fled his destiny because to embrace it would cause his rejection by his peers, his teachers, his countrymen and even the people he persecuted.

Acts 9:1-2 KJV

1 And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest,

2 And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.

Up to that point, all of Paul’s knowledge came in the form of books and education.  But Paul’s pursuit of understanding through Jewish tradition and education was nothing more than a misdirected and misunderstood idea of his true destiny.  Then something happened to him that forced him to come to terms to his true purpose and forever shattered his confidence in his education.  Paul had a revelation!  It was like nothing that he had ever experienced before, and nothing in his education could explain it.  In fact, it was contrary to his experience.  He was forced to choose between the two.

Acts 9:3-6 KJV

3 And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:

4 And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?

5 And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

6 And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.

Destiny finally caught up to Paul as a hunter to his prey.  Gripped in the clutches of destiny, Paul looked up into the brightness of God’s glory.  He would never be the same.  This was the turning point of Paul’s life.  It forced him to let go of the security of his education, his religion, even his heritage that he cherished so much, to embrace his destiny.

Paul took a fork in the road of his life that day.  He no longer fought against his destiny.  He embraced it, and from that day onward, his life was never again the same.  His life became consumed in endless revelation of the New Covenant of God.  Paul found that, even though the new course of his life brought him in conflict with virtually everyone he met, it was an easier course than the one he had been on.  As Jesus told him, “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”

There are other men whose destinies were of revelation.  John never struggled against revelation but readily embraced it.  His gospel of Jesus is like none other.  He allowed destiny to carry him away like the torrent of a mighty river.  His epistles describe a view of discipleship that we get from no other New Testament writer, and his Revelation at the end of his life is arguably the most profound writing ever penned at the hand of man.

If you are meant to be a revelator, then you must also let go of the party line and look into the invisible face of God.  Revelators follow after the unconventional.  Their ideas and points of view rarely align with the scholars and authors of the time but plow new furrows through untilled ground.

Mary, the Quiet Listener

Luke 7:37-38

37 And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment,

38 And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.

John 11:32-35

32 Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.

33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,

34 And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.

35 Jesus wept.

Luke 10:38-42

38 Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.

39 And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word.

40 But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.

41 And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:

42 But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

Every time we find Mary, we find her at the feet of Jesus.  Little else is known of her testimony other than the fact that she touched the heart of our Savior.   This was her destiny!

There are many, many women like this.  They are wives and mothers who often wrestle with the question of significance.  For them, it is difficult to see the worth of their lives.  Each day begins much as the day before and ends with much of their work remaining undone.  They watch alone in silence as their husbands advance in their careers and their children graduate from high school and leave home.

Some women, in a misguided attempt to find meaning, take on careers of their own and abandon the spiritual and mental health of their children, leaving them to the dictates of fate and their peers.  These women eventually look back on their lives and the disastrous courses their children have taken, wishing that they had been there for them.  More and more women seem to be taking this path.  But in the end they have no satisfaction, just regret.

These women are special ones whom the Lord has called to sit at his feet and minister to him.  As pressing responsibilities of the jobs and chores cumbers about their husbands and woman like Martha, they are the silent listeners to the voice of God.  And when they open their mouths, the wisdom of God pours forth.  Their husbands and children come to respect women like this.  They value their wisdom and trust their decisions.  They sit like a hub to which the spokes of their families connect.  Women like this are true oracles of the Lord, whom God often uses in gifts of prophecy and tongues and interpretation.  This is their destiny!

Conclusion

What we find in the lives of David and Paul (after his encounter on the road to Damascus) are two lives living in harmony with their destinies.  These men found favor and direction with God when they came into harmony with God’s will.  This is not an easy thing to do.  Sometimes, as with David, it is the natural outflow of your heart.  But sometimes it falls on us as it did Paul.  Sometimes, as with Paul, it requires us to let go of our security and our friends.  Sometimes it requires us to give up our occupations and sometimes even what we believe to be our callings.

There are people who are trying to be preachers but are failing miserably because they are doing what they “think” they should be doing instead of what doing what they were “meant” to do.  There are mothers who dismiss their significance because they fail to understand their value and calling.  There are people who wrestle with the dictates of their jobs because down deep they know that are meant to write or compose music.  Sometimes, as with David, the treasure of their poetry, music, and writing will never receive the appreciation that it deserves until long after their deaths.

What is your destiny?  It is your best!  It is that which has silently pursued you your entire life.  It may seem insignificant to you.  Perhaps it comes so naturally to you that you take it for granted.  Perhaps it is poetry, singing, music, composing, writing, building, evangelism, or painting.  Or perhaps it is things less tangible, like listening or experiencing God’s revelation.  Some of history’s greatest authors, composers, and artists lived in near poverty.  Some were buried in pauper’s graves, but it was nonetheless destiny that they found and achieved.  Destiny does not guarantee you success in life, but it is what you do best when you are at your best.

Destiny isn’t always the easiest path to take.  Destiny sometimes requires us to swim against the tide of public and religious opinion.  Sometimes it requires us to let go of the security of family and friends.  Sometimes it is going beyond our comfort zone and leaving the realm of what is believed possible.  Many of the early aviators fought against tremendous public opinion concerning whether or not man is meant to fly.   But they still believed that it was their destiny.

History is replete with the stories of people like Galileo, Columbus, and Beethoven.  These men were religious but found their destiny not in preaching or what we would typically understand as ministry.  They were scientists, explorers, inventors, and composers, and their legacy is still with us today.  Why?  Because they embraced their destinies.  What is yours?  Are you willing to come to terms with it?  If not, it will pursue you until you do.