Chaplain's Corner

“I never intended” this phrase could be used as an organizing principle for my life.  There is so much in my life that “I never intended”.  Take for instance my career path.  I intended to be a pastor with the Conservative Baptist Association.  I went to their Bible College in Phoenix and to their Seminary in Denver.  But when I graduated, I couldn’t find a Conservative Baptist Church that would call me to be their pastor.  I ended up with the Baptist General Conference.  I never intended things to work that way.

Then as I looked for a congregation that would trust me to serve them as their pastor, nothing happened in the United States, even though I had sent out well over 200 letters of introduction with my résumé.  Instead, a church from Saskatchewan showed an interest in me and ultimately asked me to be their pastor.  “I never intended” to immigrate to Canada.  Once here I thought this would be a short sojourn and that we would return to the States in a few years.  Now, 33 years later, here I am, with no interest in returning to the States.  That’s not what I intended.

This phrase seems to define my life.  “I never intended” to leave the pastorate and work in chaplaincy, yet here I am.  “I never intended” to work in Steinbach, yet here I am.  “I never intended” to write a newspaper column, yet here we are 9 years later and I have written in excess of 220 of these articles.  I never intended to experience most of what makes up the history of my life, but those events, those changes, those challenges, those events are the stuff of which my life is composed.

It is my guess that if you would look back over your life that you may see some of this reality as well.  I have never talked to a person with heart disease or cancer or high blood pressure or diabetes who intended to have one of these disorders.  I never talked to a person who in Rehab after a stroke that ever intended to have a stroke.  I have never talked with an accident victim, whose body was smashed up in a care accident who ever intended to have the accident, let alone the injuries that ensued.

So much of the care I provide is to people whose lives have been disrupted by things they never intended to experience.  There are different ways to look at these “never intended” incidents in our lives.  Some people who believe in chance, fate, or luck would conclude that these random insults and interruption to our intended plans are just a matter of fate.  “Stuff happens and sometimes it happens to me” they might conclude.

Others have a more “what goes round comes round” approach to makings sense out of life’s “unintended” realities.  You may have heard people talk about “karma” which is a Buddhist and Hindu expression of this philosophy.  We create our own karma either by being good or bad people.  Some Christian folks embrace this Buddhist philosophy by suggesting that the biblical, “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” adage as a biblical expression of what goes round, comes round.

I come at this reality, the “I never intended” realities in my life from a bit different perspective.  I believe in a sovereign God, a God who made and rules over the universe in which I exist.  I believe God to be infinite in every way, and that his infinite control weaves into it the freely made (even the rebellious) choices of people, like myself in a way that is beyond any capacity I have to understand.  I don’t for a minute believe that God is the cause of evil, but I also don’t believe for a minute that evil ever derails or thwarts the intentions of God.  I do not believe that God has any “I never intended that’s” in the sense that he found himself facing realities that were beyond his control.  Even the fall of Satan and the fall of man, although I don’t believe God caused them, did not take God by surprise nor did these events or any of the millions and millions of rebellious decisions made by people down through the millennia deter God from his intentions.   I do believe that his infinite knowledge and wisdom were not caught off guard by these and that his infinite control over his universe is never disrupted.

It is this belief, held by many Christian folks of many traditions, that makes us comfortable praying, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  No, I never intended the vast majority of things that came into my experience.  But my lack of intention simply reveals how little control I actually have over my life and circumstances.  Over the years I have learned, as have many who have gone before, many of my contemporaries and many that will follow, that it is best simply to put my life in God’s hands.  To have my ideas and my plans, to point my nose in directions that I believe will honor my God, but that when my intentions get derailed and I find myself in the middle if one of those “I never intended” realities, that it’s OK.

Those I care for at Bethesda Hospital and Place, the staff I serve with, live in the constant reality of “I never intended” to be in this or that situation.  Those who fight to regain control of their lives, to wrestle the direction of their lives out of the hands of the One who is in control, will live frustrated, angry and ultimately defeated lives.  Those who can yield their lives into the hands of the One who is in control, will find peace and if your experience is anything like mine, with that peace a realization that what “He intended” is so much better than what “I intended” for my life. 

In retrospect, I am happy living in Canada, happy as a pastor connected with the Baptist General Conference of Canada, happy as a Spiritual Care Specialist (that’s the newest name for chaplains) working in health care, happy to be in Steinbach and learning to embrace the “never intended” realities of my life with less resistance and a growing sense that God’s intentions have been, are and will forever be better than anything I have ever intended for my own life.

So, if you are ever reflecting on your life and you realize, “I never intended…” many of the things you have experienced.  How will you make sense out of that?  I have found a way that brings comfort and a sense of security in my life.  How are you doing with that task?