“Meant to be.”
This is a concept that’s hard for me to get on board with.
What does that mean, meant to be? Does it mean that God wants it happen? Or is it just something that we say to make ourselves feel better?
I still think about the little boy we almost had. I was watching a television show and this family had a foster kid living with them. It showed them bonding, learning about one another, and settling into their new life together. Then, after a few episodes, the foster girl's mother (who they thought was gone for good) came back into the picture and they said had to say goodbye to the girl. All of their dreams of having her in their life forever were suddenly ripped away.
I cried and cried about it, it bothered me so much. I couldn’t figure out why, and then I wondered if maybe it was because my parents struggled with the same thing.
I know God has a plan, and maybe that’s what we’re talking about when we say that something is meant to be or not. But so often humans act outside of God’s plan, sin gets in the way, so I think in the end it’s difficult to tell whether or not something is meant to be. Whether something was within God‘s perfect will or whether it happened as a result of someone’s mistake.
Maybe he ended up with a family that cares deeply about him. Maybe this experience was meant to happen so that my siblings and I would have an example of love from my parents. Maybe that little boy didn't need our family, but another child will need a loving home and one of us will provide the home he or she needs. I’m not really sure but I hope that little boy, who must be a little man by now, is alright. I’m praying for him tonight.
I'm also very suspicious of 'meant to be.'
ReplyDeleteIt very easily slides into Pride and assuming you know something about God's Plan beyond what is in the Bible, which is, as I understand it, the only blueprint going--and even that blueprint is subject to interpretation and debate.
Putting it another way: 'meant to be' raises the whole interminable and unanswerable conundrum of free will vs predestination. That's what your graf 5 touches on--and the answer is that we can argue and thunder and sermonize and even kill each other if we disagree about that issue, but none of us will ever know for sure, this side of death.