In recent years, I’ve been quite open about my faith. Faith has both graced my life and helped guide it.
I wouldn’t be the man I am today without my faith. Faith has forged the moral code that serves as a background for my actions, views and decisions. Faith has illuminated the road less traveled I’ve taken through my adult life. Faith has shown me wonder and amazement in the course of my travels and travails, and brought purpose to the otherwise robotic and mundane routine called everyday life.
But faith has not driven my life. Fate has.
It’s easy to misappropriate these terms. Culturally, faith is generally associated with good fortune, while fate is considered a dark and dubious term. One is tied with meaning, the other placed in lockstep with the cruelties of randomization.
But it’s not just simplistic and shortsighted to make these generalizations; it’s also plain wrong.
In truth, fate encompasses what happens to us in life. Faith encompasses how we respond to it.
***
On the day after Christmas, devastating tornadoes tore through the eastern suburbs of Dallas. Within moments, 11 people were dead, dozens others were hurt, and hundreds of houses were gone. In the wake of this heartbreaking devastation, someone undoubtedly thought, “How could God do this?”
But God didn’t do this.
The weather conditions were ripe for tornado development, and, lo and behold, a tornado exploded across a busy interstate and nearby residential neighborhood. It was fate that led to the devastation — people, houses and pets being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That doesn’t make it any easier for us to swallow. So we look for the meaning, and, finding none, blame God and turn away from Him.
***
Devastating episodes like this illustrate the gulf we’ve built between faith and fate, as exposure to one serves to drive away the other. We believe that faith can help us repel wickedness, and by extension, cruel twists of fate. But when the darkest sides of fate turn our lives upside down, we repel faith.
But these two concepts are actually symbiotic.
Our faith anchors us in morality and serves as our compass. But without fate, we have nothing concrete to build off of.
Fate can knock us to the canvas without rhyme or reason, But faith allows us to rally behind our morality.
When we use the two together, we can live stronger, richer lives — even in the wake of events that rock our world.
***
If fate is what happens to us, and faith is how we respond, we must re-examine our cultural definition of meaning. We tend to attach this concept to actions, when we really should tie it to reactions.
This conceptual shift helps us view the world more accurately. It also forces us to face our fears, manifested in one sobering statement.
We can’t control what happens to us.
Scary, but true. We all want control over our lives and the events therein, but the forces of fate are stronger than our desires. What we can control is our response to the highs and lows fate throws our way. And we can use the meaning we draw from these reactions to strengthen and enrich our lives.
***
I believe all of this this, because I’ve lived it.
When I was a teenager, I had no idea my adult life would take the path it has. Fate hit me hard at times — at one point, I found myself lonely and frightened in a remote West Texas city; at another, I found myself living in a hotel room for three months as I looked for a marketing job — but faith was always there to guide me.
Faith helped me focus not on the actions fate had thrown at me, but what my reaction would be. In particular, faith helped keep me even-keeled, motivated and morally sound, even in the wake of hardships and setbacks. I subsequently drew value and meaning from my reactions to these experiences; as a result, I’m a stronger, wiser man today.
Don’t run from faith, or try and give fate the slip. Welcome both with open arms.