Psalm 139.16 reads, 'Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.' Does this mean that God has charted out each and every contour of our lives? Or does this mean that, because of His omniscience (the fact that He knows all things), that He knows the courses our lives will ultimately take? If you were a deterministic Calvinist, you would say that this means God controls every aspect of our lives. The Bible says that God does whatever He pleases (Psalm 115.3), so if He decided to do this, then that would be His prerogative. However, the Bible teaches that human beings have the ability to make choices and are held responsible for those choices; and as we saw last week, the Bible gives us examples of where God allows things to happen rather than causing them to happen Himself. It seems evident that God has pleased to give human beings a certain level of autonomy; He's gifted us with human liberty so that we can make our own choices - and because they are our own choices, we are held responsible for them. This doesn't mean that we have completely free reign; God remains sovereign and in control, and He can limit our choices anytime and in any way He wants. If we aim to accomplish something that God doesn't permit, He will thwart our efforts. Likewise, if God intends for us to accomplish something, He will ensure that we accomplish it while simultaneously not violating human liberty.
Because God doesn't control every aspect of our lives, some might wonder if God has a plan for our lives. Does God have a specific destination in mind for each and every person? There are instances in scripture where God does have purposes for people, and for some His purposes stretch to before they were even born. God purposed Abraham to be the father of the Jewish people; God purposed Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt; God chose David to be the great King of Israel; God chose the prophet Jeremiah to deliver an unwanted message to rebellious Jerusalem; God purposed Mary to be the mother of the Messiah; God purposed the Apostle Paul to be the 'Apostle to the Gentiles.' Sometimes God has a plan for people that aren't so great for them: God purposed King Saul to be Israel's first king and he turned out to be a failure; God purposed Jeremiah to have a miserable life (he couldn't have a family, party, or enjoy the fruit of the vine); and the Apostle Paul was destined for suffering. Sometimes God has purposes even for pagans in order to accomplish His plans: Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Cyrus II 'The Great' of Persia, Alexander the Great of Macedon, and Caesar Augustus of the beginning of the Roman Empire all come to mind. God used all of them to accomplish His purposes.
What do these examples tell us? They tell us that sometimes - though not necessarily all the time, for we must be careful not to make universal principles of specific examples - God has specific plans for people. These examples also tell us that God's purposes for people aren't to grant them all their hopes and aspirations but to use them as tools for His own good purposes. Nowhere in scripture do we see God 'having a plan' for someone in order to give them an easy, luxurious life. If God has a specific, mission-oriented purpose for your life, it likely won't be to give you the life you want - and that's God's right as sovereign.
For most of us, God's 'plan' for our life isn't as specific as the examples given above. This doesn't mean, of course, that God doesn't have plans for us. The Apostle Paul shoots point-blank: 'For we are [God's] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.' (Eph 2.10) In other words, God has plans for us to do good works, and He has put us where we're at to be His tools in accomplishing those good works. Even more shocking, God has prepared these good works for us 'beforehand' - it isn't as if we stumble upon the opportunity to do good; God has intentionally given us opportunities to do good. In a more general scope, it is God's plan for us - or His 'will' for us - to be 'conformed to the image of His Son'; we are to grow in righteousness in preparation for the new heavens and new earth and to reclaim our identity and mission as His image-bearers.
In 1 Thessalonians 4.3 Paul says (again, point-blank!) that God's will for us is our sanctification. God intends that we live a certain way. He created us to live a certain way. All sin is deviation from that way of living. To be a human created in the image of God is to embrace a God-centered life, and when we stray from that way of living we are, in a sense, becoming dehumanized. All sin is dehumanizing in that it pulls us further away from living as humans are created to live. All sin is harmful to us because it detracts from our purpose and meaning and flourishing as human beings. Holiness and righteousness means living as God intends us to live. God has told us how to live in His Word and has revealed to us the way we are to live through His Son. When we read the gospels and see Jesus at work, we're seeing how God intends us to be. This is why Paul tells us to 'imitate Christ' (Eph 5:1-2) and why God's intention is for us to 'become like Christ' (Rom 8:29). Jesus isn't some sort of 'super human'; he's a true human (who also happens to be God enfleshed), and as such he's a beacon and lighthouse for those who acknowledge their sin and who want to get back to their roots as God's image-bearers. This is one of the reasons Paul portrays Jesus as the 'Second Adam' in Romans 5.12-21: where Adam failed to be truly human, Jesus succeeded in being truly human! It is God's plan that, as redeemed human beings who have been dehumanized by sin and who have been set free from the power of sin, we grow in holiness. God, in His providence and wisdom, is intimately involved in our lives so that we become more like Jesus - and thus more human. Last week we saw how God uses hardships and suffering as powerful tools towards this end, so we won't belabor the point here.
So, on the one hand, God's plan for us is that we grow in holiness, in genuine human living. Genuine human living, however, is intimately wrapped up in being an image-bearer of God. In Genesis 1 God decides to create mankind - both man and woman - in His image. It's the defining characteristic of what separates mankind from the animals. But what does this actually mean? Some believe it means that human beings reflect their Creator - God's 'image' - in that they possess emotions, feelings, intelligence, and creativity. Certainly these reflect that we have a creator, but are they unique to mankind? Many animals have emotions and feelings (note elephants who mourn their dead); many animals are intelligent and communicate with one another (such as dolphins); and even gorillas and elephants have shown creativity. None of this should be surprising, since animals - unlike trees or rocks - have 'spirits' (Ecclesiastes 3:21); but mankind has body, spirit, and soul (1 Thessalonians 5:23). When animals die, they don't face judgment; they have no moral compass. A moral compass certainly differentiates us from the animals, but even this isn't what it means to be an imager of God (and, interestingly, it seems mankind was created without a moral compass; this is something we gained after the Fall in Genesis 3).
To understand what it means to be an image-bearer of God, we need to step back in time to the ancient Near East. An 'image-bearer' is a title related to eastern kingship. Ancient kings or emperors had their 'image-bearers' who were tasked with carrying out their rule and authority throughout their kingdoms; in the same way, mankind has been created as God's ambassadors. God created mankind in the Garden of Eden but tasked them with leaving that garden and carrying the garden throughout the untamed world. From the beginning human beings were created special in that we were created with a purpose, to advance God's orderly rule throughout the cosmos. Yes, we are created to serve and worship God, but as His image-bearers, we are created specifically to advance God's kingdom. Being an image-bearer is at the core of what it means to be human, and as redeemed human beings, God's plan is for us to be His image-bearers in the here and now.
As Christians, we are tasked with spreading God's kingdom. This is one of God's primary 'plans' for us. We do this by living holy lives and telling people about Jesus. God could certainly just write the gospel in the sky, but He has chosen to use mankind as His instrument. Why is this? It's because He hasn't rejected His plan for us to be His image-bearers. It is God's intention for us, in the here and now in the midst of the present evil age, to advance His kingdom. We start by submitting ourselves to Him in our own spaces: our own bodies, our own relationships, in our household. It's my task, as the husband and father, to build a household that is rooted in God's kingdom. When this is done, the household becomes holy ground reclaimed from the powers of evil and dedicated to God. I fail - and do so miserably at times! - but that is God's intention. Our calling as image-bearers won't be jettisoned in the new heavens and new earth; when that day comes, we will still be image-bearers, but we will be playing on a much larger - a cosmic! - playing field.
So does God have a plan for your life? Absolutely! His plan is that you do good works, grow in holiness (genuine human living), and advance God's kingdom by preaching the gospel. This life is both a mission and a training ground. We're not here to have God cater to our dreams and ambitions. We're here to be His image-bearers. A lot of people anguish over God's will for their lives - I certainly used to! - but this knowledge is freeing. The Bible tells us that God's will for our life is simple, and so long as we are living a life characterized by those things God desires of us, we are in the will of God.
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