Risk of Destiny

And God said,” Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” – Genesis 1:26

With God’s breath, life was given to man. The Divine dreamed that man would find the Kingdom within his own heart. All of us were given unique fates at birth. Our fates are unchangeable factors of life, such as socioeconomic status, family, and nationality. With each fate, there is a destiny. Destiny is a call to reach beyond fate for a greater quality of living. This will raise a person above the mundane, fated life and into the spiritual, destined life. Each individual must accept or reject the destiny God offers. When seeking destiny, humans will know when it is discovered because their hearts will be opened to the essence of their life’s purpose. By recognizing our nature and essence, we become in the likeness of God. These are “God’s dreams for us,” as Robert Lawton states.

As a consequence of God’s dreams, we find man’s insecurity in the form of questions. Am I doing the right thing? Am I taking the right path? Do I even have a path? I have felt these insecurities before. To understand and overcome them, I began seeking my original purpose, which I believe is to tell stories. In my life, the greatest risk is not understanding God’s dreams for me. By cultivating myself with formal education, I will be better equipped to confront life’s spiritual and moral challenges. With this ability, I will not only be born in the image of God, but I will be more in his likeness.

This is our original nature, but we frequently find ourselves astray and must realign with our true purpose. This journey to be ourselves is the riskiest, as Lawton purposes. Lawton points to how easily people lose their nature in the face of worldly stresses. Adam’s fall in Genesis is an ideal example of the risk involved. After he ate the Forbidden Fruit, God’s first question was “Where are you?” God placed Adam in Eden with an original nature and a destiny to stay in the likeness of God. When he ate the fruit, he fell from his nature, thus falling away from God. God poses this question as an exclamation of betrayal, rather than a query of his physical location or an inquisition of his psyche. This is the root of our insecurity: falling away from our nature and God’s dreams for us.

On our journey, there are many attractions that lead us in circles. Social exploits and economic comfort can make us turn from the spiritual path we are set on. In today’s climate, we seek a socially acceptable path to “getting a good job,” and if we are lucky, early retirement. Trading one’s nature to please the masses is the bane of morality and God’s dreams for us. A poet, for instance, is born to a business-owning father. The child loves words and wants to weave them into beautiful songs. One day, the child tells his father that he wants to be a writer. His father, being a man of business, will steer the child away from this foolish, unprofitable profession. The father chisels away at the child’s nature until he has become the same statue of a man. By defying his nature, the child becomes an adult who wanders in spiritual darkness. He transmutes the Kingdom is in heart to stone.

In my journey, there are innumerable risks that lie ahead. For many college students, they expect the greatest dangers to be found in the questionable behavior of their peers, as well as themselves. The use of destructive intoxicants and predominance of sexually-driven relationships mark the stereotypes of the college youth. These things hold little sway over me. The risk I am concerned the most about is the one people don’t usually see. I fear the choice to settle for economic gain rather than treading the path of being one’s self. Today success is marked by a person’s ability to gather money and resources. Albeit most become financially successful through hard work and personal sacrifices, their hard work becomes negligible in comparison to their wealth. I can already feel the pressures from friends and family, encouraging me to obtain a degree that quickly unfolds into a profitable career. My risk comes from the temptation to be “successful” in the eyes of the masses.

I want to tell stories. More specifically, I want to tell stories through film. Trite phrases and clichés aside, this gives me a true sense of happiness. Not the emotional happiness derived from the taste of something sweet or the soft feeling a woman’s touch. It is something deeper in my soul that beckons to me, “Nick, tell them a story.” I am at risk of losing this voice, not because it will leave me, but because I won’t listen. I could settle for becoming a career, or I could stride through the path that was set in front of me and become myself.