QUE SERA SERA?

Just the other week a young man gave up his fight against Covid 19 and died unexpectedly in hospital. Some days after another younger man collapsed in his home. He had a massive heart attack. He died before he was rushed to the hospital.

Recently on a call with someone, who knew both these people, the distraught gentleman spoke a sentence to me that got me thinking.

“Oh!” he said, “It was just their destiny!”

Whoa!

So, what is destiny then? Here’s what Webster says, “The predetermined or inevitable course of events considered beyond the power or control of people.”

Some of you may remember the song that Doris Day sang, and used to come so frequently on ‘Radio Ceylon’. This famous song was Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be). The four verses of the song progress through life. From childhood, through young adulthood and falling in love, to parenthood…and each verse enquires, “What will I be?” or “What lies ahead?”

The chorus repeats the answer: “What will be, will be.”

In my very young days, the quick catching melody rang so often in my head. I latched on not just to the melody but the philosophy of the song. And if it hadn’t to be for my life-changing relationship with Jesus, I would’ve still believed this. It is definitely not “What will be, will be.”

I do not believe in fatalism. I will tell you why.

God has determined His will for us. His will wholly rests on our obedience to Him, and our cooperation with His ways. In the Bible God has sovereignly interwoven His will and purposes with men, changing them and challenging them to continually walk in His ways.

The prophet Jeremiah, aptly put it thus. He says, on behalf of God, “…for I know the plans I have for you…” Jer 29:11. Again Paul, the great Apostle in the New Testament reiterates, “…so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.” Ephesians 2:10.

Furthermore, our destiny doesn’t originate from within us.  Destiny is not generated by our desires or ideas. It is orchestrated by God Himself for each one of us.

Moses had to learn this very same thing himself. The Egyptians worshipped gods that were related to fate and chance.

Growing up in Egypt Moses was very familiar with the mythological god, Hemsut (or Hemuset). She was the goddess of fate and protection. Hemsut is also the representative of the ‘Ka’. (The Egyptian understanding of the soul or the spirit). Hemsut’s headdress bears a shield, above which are two crossed arrows, in which the Egyptians believed whether death or protection, the goddess must be worshipped.

Back to Moses, who was raised in Egypt and their ways, and their gods, for 40 years. Then at 40 he was kind of exiled, and at 80 years old Moses met God face to face at the burning bush on a desert mountain. It was in this place that God revealed His destiny for Moses and His plans for the future. Not just for Moses but for the whole nation of Israel. As the story goes, not soon after Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, to the Promised Land.

Destiny not only changes you; it affects those with whom you are connected. And God says in the Holy Bible, “…My ways are far beyond anything you can imagine…”

So, my friends, it is not Que Sera Sera, it is God’s will and purposes that you wholly submit to.

Be careful which melody rules your life!