I had the privilege of addressing the “Gusto!” group at King of Glory Lutheran Church here in Dallas. As the description of the group might suggest, the class is largely (though not exclusively) made up of folks who have retired. And the subject that they wanted to explore dealt with God’s will.
One of the people who attended admitted that she really wasn’t sure that there was much for someone her age to gain from a conversation of that kind. But, thankfully, I did a bit of “profiling” and chose to answer the questions that I think most people have about the will of God at or around the age of retirement. I don’t have the full text here (though later I will post the recording).
But I can share, in brief, the six questions I raised for the group and the abbreviated form of the answers I gave:
i. Did I make choices that brought me to this place in life?
Yes. Many of us talk about having done the only thing we could do, or about God bringing us to this or that place in life. That’s understandable language, but when it suggests that we haven’t made any real choices or that we bear no responsibility for them, then something is amiss.
We may not want to take responsibility.
We may have too simple a vision of what it means for God to “be in control.”
But when we seemingly claim that God is completely responsible for the events in our lives, then we run the risk of erasing moral responsibility for our choices. And we also make nonsense of the spiritual gifts that we have been given. We are free and free to be creative. Part of the joy and privilege of being a child of God is the gift of choice.
Life is not paint by numbers — it is a blank canvas that God invites us to fill with color. And the reassurance given us is not that nothing happens that God doesn’t will — the reassurance is that God is with us.
ii. Did you make some wrong choices?
Yes. And you haven’t made your last one.
Mistakes lack moral content. They are often the by-product of a lack of information, growth in wisdom, experience, and education. “To err is human.”
When it comes to mistakes the important thing to remember is that “you know what you know when you know it.” Once you do, the only mistake you can make is to continue making the same mistake. Endless post mortems do neither you, nor the people you love any good.
Sin — the willful choice to ignore God — is a different matter. But even here, it is important to ask, “what do even sinful choices tell me about the needs of my soul.” Repentance and amendment of life is not about making us feel bad about ourselves, it is about restoring and repairing the depth of intimacy we enjoy with God and with others.
iv. Does it matter that I have made the wrong choices?
Not as much as you think. God’s providence is endlessly adaptive. Our conception of divine control is shaped by the simple metrics of human control…”If I am in control, then nothing happens that I don’t want to happen.”
But God gives us the gift of choice and can respond creatively and in ways that make for new possibilities even when we “get it wrong.”
In all likelihood, God is probably more often frustrated by our indecision than the choices we make — and all of them figure more importantly as an opportunity for getting to know God.
v. Do I have choices left and do they matter?
Yes. Age has nothing to do with the question of God’s will for us.
In the first place, discerning the will of God is not about us anyway. It is about cultivating an awareness of where, when, and how God is at work in the world. And that is a process that has nothing to do with our individual lives. In fact, there is something to say for the wisdom that someone older might bring to that process.
The prophets used to speak of “young men dreaming dreams and old men seeing visions.” Every generation has light to bring to bear on the effort to listen for God.
To the extent that our individual lives matter — and they do — the thing to remember is that the work of God in our lives is not about the things we do — never mind the things we do early in life. They are about the person we are becoming. And the choices we make shape that becoming over a lifetime.
That is why it is far more important to ask, “Who am I before God?” than it is to ask “What does God want me to do?”
God loves you better than you love yourself and you were meant for glory.