A quick rant on “divine appointments” and “life changing moments”

The phrases “divine appointment” and “life changing moment” annoy and entertain me at the same time.  They entertain me because people use them to signify moments where they see God’s sovereignty – and that makes my little predestinarian heart leap for joy.   They annoy me because people often use them to limit God’s sovereignty to those exact same moments.

Think about it.  If we label meeting someone a “divine appointment” then what does that mean for all the other times we’ve met people?  Those words seems to make some arbitrary distinction between encounters that God ordains and ones that are somehow ordinary, or un-divine.  Call me crazy (people often do) but I honestly believe that each and every encounter we have is divine.  Each time I interact with someone is an opportunity for Christ in me to call out something in the other person that only the image of God in me can.  It is also an opportunity for me to grow more like Christ by allowing the image of God in the other person to challenge and shape me.  Strangely enough, the more I approach life from that perspective the more “divine appointments” I have.

And then the whole concept of something being “life changing” just seems like an oxymoron to me.  It simultaneously affirms and denies predestination in two little words.  Track with me as I try to unpack that.  Generally what people mean when they say something changed their life is that they felt their life was heading in a specific direction and that an event caused that direction to shift.  In saying that the direction was already laid out they are affirming the idea that life is already planned.  But then it changed… I’m sorry but I just can’t reconcile those things.  If it was laid out in advance then how can it be changed?  Either it is being unfolded according to a plan or it is being developed with each descision that you make.  In either case life remains unchanged.  It is being revealed or formed – not changed.

Anyway, I hope this little rant has divine timing and changes your life