The Divinity That Shapes Our Ends

(To gain a further understanding of the meditation that follows, a reading of the indicated scriptures would be most helpful. In addition, the Editorial Notes at the end of this post may provide further understanding)

Joshua 5: 9 – 12
Luke 15: 11 – 32
It is easy enough for humans to get trapped in the labyrinth of life, and then spend the remainder of their days decrying the seeming futility of it all. But suppose there is no such thing as a useless experience for any human on this earth – no lost good, no forgotten hope! What if a sojourn in the labyrinth is, after all, the highway to the kingdom of success and incredible fulfillment!
The Story of Joshua referenced above makes us aware of forces that batter the lives of the ancient Hebrews. Lost in the ‘slave pens’ of the Delta for generations, God’s chosen race is free at last. But that is not the end of the labyrinth. A forty-year trek through a pitiless, scorching desert is just beginning.
Is there a Divinity behind all that? Is there a purpose behind the wailing and the crying? How can any of those experiences be shaping a destiny? Forty years in the scorching desert, enduring the blistering scouring of driving sand – while still trying to keep alive a vision of a new place to call home – seems far beyond the most rudimentary understanding of fairness or decency. From the desert’s red-hot crucible of experience, individuals emerge reshaped into a community.

Let it never be forgotten, that all through these formative years a Divinity is shaping their destiny. Every day, in one corner of the scene or another, the Hand of God is in evidence: wiping the tears of a child, giving a song of victory to some over-laden soul, or laying ‘Bread from Heaven’ at the doorstep of some hungry family. Above all else, Divinity is the one thing needed to make sure that “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” God is keeping them alive for an end that He alone can see. Apart from those momentary glimpses of God, they are destined to succumb to the tortures of futility. This truth has even further application.

The world’s pre-eminent dramatist, William Shakespeare, creates his famous character Hamlet as one hopelessly lost in the maze of belittling and disgusting behavior. He proceeds through his swiftly moving years –  sometimes pensive, but never committed; often hot-headed, but never serene. Then one day there is a moment of startling profundity. Hamlet utters an immortal truth!
“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.”
(Act 5, Scene 2)

Hamlet is acknowledging that there are many things out of his control and that in the end, it is God who will determine our destinies. Even though the rough-hewn years of Hamlet’s life are self-appointed, this can never nullify the abiding fact: there is a Divinity that shapes life – Hamlet’s, and ours too.

Again, it is a fact of divinity shaping lives that provides the impetus for the telling of one of the greatest love stories ever told. This story, commonly known as “The Story Of The Prodigal Son”, is told by Jesus, the Master of Life. The younger of two sons in their father’s employ grows restless and responds to a call for adventure and unfettered freedom. He takes every step, in his mind, to ensure that this farewell will be forever. He takes everything he owns, and everything that the future and his father’s love might yet provide, and heads into the twilight.

The gaping entry into the labyrinth is always deceptive. Friends are waiting to introduce him to all kinds of new adventures. Away the young man goes, dancing his merry way. Away from home, away from decency, away from respectability. He is so inebriated with all “the good times,” that he doesn’t notice how narrow and restricting the maze is becoming. Soon there is barely room for one to travel alone, all alone. It is at that precise moment, Jesus tells us : He came to himself, and said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have enough bread, and to spare, and here I am dying from hunger. I will arise and go to my Father.’ There is divinity, shaping a life that was self-inflicted with rough-hewn experiences. For what purpose did Divinity shape the young lad’s decision processes? What is the purpose of reshaping his life, or any life? It has everything to do with destiny. That destiny is to finally know the Love of God that transforms every life into a thing of extreme beauty. In the service for the Lord that follows, even the scars from the rough-hewn wounds will speak eloquently of the Divinity that shapes our lives.

“With mercy and with judgment
My web of time He wove,
And aye the tears of sorrow
Were lustered by His Love;
I’ll bless the hand that guided,
I’ll bless the heart that planned,
When throned where glory dwelleth
In Emmanuel’s Land.

O Christ, He is the fountain,
The deep, sweet well of love!
The streams on earth I’ve tasted
More deep I’ll drink above:
There to an ocean fullness
His mercy doth expand,
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Emmanuel’s  land.” Amen.

Prayer To Follow This Meditation

Open my eyes today that I may see You
In all Your Glory,
my ears that I may hear You, offering Love to replace malignant hate,
my mouth that I may speak from the casket of my heart where You have stored the treasures
of Your Love and Your Peace!

You are providing the way out of this labyrinth that is tearing apart this severely wounded world. Give us the courage to arise and come back to You. With humility may we sit at Your Table and receive from Your Hand our daily bread, thereby rejecting the offer to select sustenance from the contaminated menu of this world. In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.

Hymn :          Lead Us, Heavenly Father, Lead Us

 

https://youtu.be/JAve_-XMoMY

 

Editorial Notes
1. The Holy Bible. Here and throughout this discourse, the quotes from Scripture are from The New International Translation Of Scripture, NIV.
2.William Shakespeare. In The Tragedy Of Hamlet Prince Of Denmark. Act 5, Scene 2
ww.w3.org/People/maxf/XSLideMaker/hamlet.pdf

3.  “Lead Us, Heavenly Father, Lead Us”

4. Photo:     ‘The Sea’  Taken in Brigus, Newfoundland