Destiny, Overdone (part 1: "Promise Child")

For a combination of reasons I still don’t quite comprehend, probably going all the way back to the womb…I grew up with a “promise child” mentality. I have had an inflated sense of responsibility for as long as I can remember. I was a perpetual overachiever, was always considered the smartest kid in the class, had an acute sense of conscience bordering on torment, and showed an interest in spiritual things beyond my years. Also, my gift for music blossomed at an early age, which garnered me even more attention. And being an only child (read: my parents’ only shot at successful offspring) couldn’t have done anything but intensified the sense of expectation I felt. It seemed nearly every adult I connected with saw me as “special”, someone destined for some sort of greatness.

As my journey went more into church and ministry circles, this sense of destiny took a decidedly spiritual tone. As a zealous Christian youth with a musical gift and a calling to the ministry, it was easy to find my way into the “inner circles” of ministry. I was an easy target for visiting ministers who frequently prophesied great things over me, and intercessors “saw” things in the spirit so amazing they sometimes wouldn’t even tell me what they were. I easily attained a sort of celebrity status in the megachurch where I played the piano, and later found out that many of the mothers there had fancied me as the perfect future husband for their daughters. Many people were called of God, but it was like I was really called. Like the hand of God was on me in a way that it was not upon others. Like I was chosen.

No pressure.

All this attention and expectation had a dual effect on my soul. To the extent that I believed how “special” I was…I assumed a manner of arrogance and superiority above others, especially peers. But at the same time…it placed an amazing weight upon my soul because I had so much to measure up to. People would marvel because I seemed like two different people. When I was relaxed and comfortable, I could cut up and have people in stitches with my sense of humor; but when I had a task to perform, especially in music or ministry, I became deadly serious to the point of hatefulness. Whatever I was about to do–I had to do it right. It literally stole the joy out of things that should have given me the most joy.

This inflated sense of destiny followed me well into adulthood. I can remember being 22 years old and feeling like I had let everyone from my past down because I was not already a nationally-known musical ministry figure. Sometime in my early 30’s, some visiting “prophetess” told me she had never encountered anyone as “called” as I was.

Wow. I must really be somebody. 🙂

Now, for some people, having this kind of burden pushes and drives them to do whatever it takes to live up to that destiny–to become whatever it is that people expect them to be, or what they fancy that God expects them to be. But for me–it actually had the opposite effect. Because of the intense spiritual ramifications of my particular “destiny”, I felt that destiny was so holy that I dare not touch it. I didn’t see destiny as something that God was just going to work out in my life; I saw it more like this fragile, narrow line I had to walk, where any wrong choice could potentially hijack the whole thing.

This has played out in a couple of ways in my life. First–I was terrified of life choices. What if I take the wrong turn–no matter how good it looks? I compensated for this fear by feeling like I needed an unmistakable divine word from God before making a major decision. Of course, the problem with that is, sometimes that kind of obvious divine guidance is there, and other times it’s not so clear. And just because God doesn’t confirm each decision by parting the heavens and shining down the glory-light with angels singing–that doesn’t mean it’s the wrong decision. (One example: Marrying The Wild One has been one of the best life choices I ever made. But because I never received a “word of the Lord” to marry her, a lot of the joy was sucked out of the engagement/marriage process for me because as much as I loved her, I lived in fear that it might be the wrong decision.)

The second way this has played out is that because I felt destiny was too holy to be touched, I have been very hesitant to move forward in my calling, very slow to knock on doors. I felt that when the time was right, God would set up the perfect circumstances to catapult me into a larger arena, and any attempt on my part to move forward would be forcing His hand. As a result–I’ve spent a long time waiting for some divine supernatural moment of “discovery” that as yet has never come, when I could have just been doing a lot of things I truly enjoy, things that might have opened more doors for me. Instead of living life in the moment and letting destiny happen, I spent a lot of time looking to the horizon, waiting for my “destiny” to come to me.

So that’s all the bad news. 🙂 In the next segment of this series, I’ll share how God is balancing out my view of destiny, and how I’m finding freedom from inflated expectations.

For the record…I still believe God destines us and has a plan for us, I still believe in seeking God’s guidance for direction in our lives and our choices, and I still believe in dreaming big and pursuing those dreams. It’s just that I’m seeing these things in a different light nowadays. More soon….