Predestination

Years ago, I was made heir to my father. I didn’t ask for it. I only remember my aunty coming to me and asking me to give a speech at his funeral.

I had two elder brothers! Why wouldn’t they speak! I wondered.

Regardless, this is a responsibility I didn’t ask for, and could not escape. But the moral isn’t in why so and so didn’t speak.

Reflecting on it yesterday, God said, “Just like you didn’t have the privilege to be consulted, there are things I have also settled with Heaven that you must do and be. There’s no escaping them, and you can’t run away from them.”

“What if I don’t want them? What if I run away?” I ranted.

“It was never up to you to want or not. Some of these things are the reason as to why some people are still alive. Once these purposes or responsibilities end, why should they keep breathing?”

“I’ll run then…”

“O, the Jonah move.” God smirked as He crossed His arms, and I made my back face Him as I squinted through the window. He added, “…Some things Simon, some things won’t be given to another man like some sermons have suggested. It was Jonah and it had to be Jonah. Some of life’s events won’t have a second option, and you will just have to grow into those responsibilities, like you did that of heirdom. It had to be Moses just as much as it had to be Jonah. I had to wait on him even after killing a man.”

I sighed.

God patted my shoulder, and said, “It’s called predestination. I decide it all before I even ever made you…

…but fear not. I won’t give you much more than you can bear. Fear not. I am with you. And I’ll uphold you with my right hand.”

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In our different journeys of consecration, I’m learning, or I have learnt, that there are common denominators when it comes to this sacrament. One will be us dying to our will: The ability to decide! It’s easy to get excited to hear God say easy things that you were predestined for. Say, you’re a king, or queen. But it wasn’t easy for human Jesus to face that cross to which He was predestined. He sweated blood for Pete’s sake, asking the cup be removed.

But it didn’t go anywhere. Sometimes the only way is through… Sometimes the only way is to drink every last drop of the bitter cup, and then perhaps, you’ll notice, that there is a goblet with gems ahead with something sweet. Sometimes the only way to please, is to obey — even when dumb things like sacrificing your only Isaac are asked for you! And then, as you’re about to smite him, a lamb you’ll see ahead; meant to be sacrificed in Isaac’s stead, having watched everything this entire time.

If God has chosen that you will enjoy some things predestined, then we must also remember that He has chosen that you will suffer some things predestined as well. Now it makes sense where Isaiah wrote ‘the burden of vision’. Nahum wrote ‘the burden of Nineveh’. They are BURDENS! And not bundles of ice cream! But not to worry you, for each of us is a grace for any suffering or burden. Of His fullness we’ve received, and grace for grace.

In a nutshell, I think — No! I believe — that you’d rather understand your lot, or predestined burden, than deny it. For in accepting it, you’ll bloom. In denying it, you’ll die quicker. Paul accepted to be a one sent to the gentiles. He shone bright. But when Peter (even if He knew He was meant for the Jews) went to the gentiles as well… they killed him! That’d be unclear,but see Jonah.

He ran, and even the oceans were in contention. They knew Nineveh was calling. If Jonah didn’t go off that ship, innocent lives could have been lost. That’s what I mean by of we don’t accept that predestination, there are faster deaths. Not just of us, but of others. How many died while Moses away in Midian? — O God help us!

You don’t get to choose what your part in God’s grand scheme of things will be. The clay won’t tell the potter the kind of shape it wants for in it isn’t the mind of vision. Or to put it simply, it has no hands to mold the shape it wants of itself. Only but to trust the potter. Only but to trust the one who’ll breathe into it and say ‘live.’ Now that’s one dimension of this consecration ritual.

I’m yet to fully understand this consecration thing, but for now, I pray for you, that God reveals to you what He meant for you, and that you’ll stay the course, for the crown that will await…

Also (a ray of hope), that however bad you’ve got it, like Moses, God’ll still use you, and will wait as long as it takes for you to be found, for you to accept this ‘burden’, or for you to come around. For like He said, some assignments were meant to be fulfilled by you and you alone.

Arise, millions of Ninevehites await!

Happy consecration!