Released Into Your Destiny (Part 1)
Until I read a great little book called The Cure I’d never used the word “destiny”. It sounded mystical, metaphorical and scary. Like getting on the Titanic for a second time. You’re going to die and you’re supposed to. The script is written. You’re just acting out your part.
But Lynch, McNichol and Thrall speak of being ‘released into your destiny’. It’s realizing who you are and where you are in life. That what you’re doing is what you’re to do with your life. In a sense, you don’t choose your destiny, you become aware of it. You recognize “This is what I was made for.” “This is what I was put here to do.” Seth Godin would call it your ‘art’. Recognizing your destiny’s a good thing, but there IS a tension…a little bit of “I love my life and can’t imagine anything else” pressed up against “I’m trapped and don’t have any other options.”
I liken it to the feeling when you come down the ‘on-ramp’ onto a big expressway. You realize “Hey, I’m here now. I’m on this road with a lot of momentum and I can’t really exit or do anything else”. There’s a sense of security in knowing you’re on your right road…that you’re moving forward…other options are put away and your focus is on executing this one thing. There’s a peace in the exclusivity. Sure, you could cut across the median, or across the grass, or through a fence, or back up an ‘on-ramp’ to escape. But it would be messy, illegal and expensive…in more ways than one.
Maybe the clearest illustration of ‘destiny’ is marriage, at least the way marriage was intended by our Lord. Yes, we choose whom we marry, but once we’ve gone down the ‘on-ramp’ and committed to a wife, that’s our destiny. She’s our destiny. She’s the only legitimate source of romance we’ll ever have. That exclusivity can bring energy, peace and focus as we live out ‘one wife for life’. God intended death to be the only ‘exit ramp’ for marriage.
If you’re in the ‘sage’ stage of life and wonder if you’ve “been released into your destiny”, ask yourself these questions….
1. Do you love what you do? Is it fulfilling? Sure, you’re tired at times, but do you ever really dread your work? Do you ever think seriously about not showing up?
2. Are you continuously learning? Is it what you read about? Are you utilitarian…..or perpetually curious?
3. Have you eliminated other options? Consciously or unconsciously, has your energy for other endeavors waned to where you’re focused on just this one thing?
4. Can you visualize doing what you’re doing for the rest of your life? Maybe not with the same people or in the same context, but somehow you know this is what you’ll be about from now on.
5. Are you at least as energized now as when you started?
Your ‘destiny’ isn’t a particular job or title or location or organization. It’s a God-given, experience-derived extension of your identity. When you wake up in it…when you get over the shock of “this is all there is”, it’s one of God’s sweetest, most peace-giving blessings.
Question: Have you been “released into your destiny?” Tell us, and tell us how you know. Comment here.
1 The Cure – Thrall, McNicol, and Lynch- CrossSection – 2011
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Responses (2)
That phrase “released into your destiny” has always made my teeth itch. It’s not language I would choose. Like you, it seems mystical and perhaps a little unreliable to me.
However, when I read your questions I do feel released into my destiny. The answer to each of your questions is Oh Yes! It does not feel like something achieved but something received. Having struggled with issues of purpose and calling for decades this feels like a blessing from God and I am thankful.
You have articulated it well. Thank you!
I cleaned out my desk at home a few weeks back and ran across an old org chart from fourteen years ago that had me at the top as a VP, with 70 plus names underneath it. Thinking back, I was chasing what I thought was my destiny – success in business. Truth was I was miserable, uneasy, unsure, making bad decisions at home and not leading well. Tomorrow, a group of six of us will share a pot-luck Thanksgiving lunch around an old conference room table and a card table. We’ll have five spouses and the father of an employee. We’ll laugh and enjoy each other’s company and think about the calendar year about to end, about how what we’ve learned, how each of our families have endured certain hardships, talk about the eleven children that belong to “our group” and how they are doing, remember how we almost decided to merge with a bigger company but didn’t. I’ll know, this is what I’m meant to be doing – I know that for now I’m living my destiny. It will be a good feeling.