What is my destiny?

There are times, along this human journey, when the most important thing we can do is be true to our divine destiny. Often, like Esther, that destiny is not something we have sought, planned for or even desired. Sometimes it’s a destiny that you might have been avoiding as you had might have thought it really wasn’t you. And just as often, God’s plans for us require much more than we thought we had to give.

I remember thinking when a young Minister that I could or never would be a Priest looking after a Cathedral for a Bishop and serving its people. Little did I know when I arrived in Townsville, God was guiding me in that direction. The need, when I arrived in Townsville was in the Cathedral and so despite my own misgivings I ended up there. Yet through all this and when faced with something alien for us, God’s grace makes it possible for us to be available at just the right time to accomplish God’s purposes.

Sometimes we may consider ourselves handicapped by age (too young or too old), or gender or race or physical or mental condition. Our internal battles can distract us as well from the path God has set before us. For me in the Cathedral it was things like my limited music knowledge my limited liturgical knowledge and so on that led me to feel at sea. Yet, God seemed to want to use those gifts I had in the area of compassion, care and nurture. I’d also like to say that every gift makes room for itself when the bearer of it is willing and ready to give it away.

Consider Esther, comfortable in her role and position as queen. She probably never anticipated that things would change the way they did. And certainly not that she would be the instrument of a historical intervention of God. Yet, when God called, she answered, even though it could have meant losing everything she had— even her life. There was a cause bigger than her personal life. This cause was for justice because of the love she possessed for her people.

God did not require she give up her life, but she did have to give of herself. As Christians in the twenty-first century, our task is to stay open to God’s call. However daunting the task may appear to us before we begin, we know by faith that it is God who gives us strength and power. Because Jesus was true to his divine destiny, we have both life and hope. The spirit of Christ within empowers us to fulfil our destinies in just such times as these.

Jesus having driven out evil and anointed many sick people with oil, healed them.  This was a single conspicuous gift, which Christ committed to his apostles, (Mark 6: 13). A gift which has remained in the church long after it has seemed that miraculous gifts are no longer obvious to us. Indeed, it seems to have been designed to remain always; and St. James directs the elders, those set aside as gifted people, to administer it. This was the whole process of physic or healing in the Christian church, till it was somewhat lost which some say was through unbelief.

Then we go on to the thorny problem of exclusion in our gospel reading. And John answered him— As if he had said, but should we receive those who don’t follow us? Master, we saw one casting out evil in your name— probably this was one of John the Baptist’s disciples, who believed in Jesus, though he did not yet associate with our Lord’s disciples. And we tried to stop him, because he was not following us. How often is the same temper found in us? How readily do we also lust or find envy within our being? So, how does that spirit become a disciple, or even a minister of the benevolent, loving Jesus!

St. Paul had learnt a better temper, when he rejoiced that Christ was preached, even by those who were his personal enemies. But to confine religion to them that follow us, is a narrowness of spirit which we should avoid and abhor. For all people may believe, St Paul, was to be, I am certain a person who understood his divine destiny and understood his own limitations before Jesus. He was willing to share with all, gently how he had failed Jesus and encouraged anyone and everyone to come before God as God through Jesus who accepted them all.