Random

Random was one of the defining popular words of my middle and early high school years. I distinctly remember overhearing one of my camp counselors saying to another, “What is it with these kids and the word random?” My friends and I may not use the word random so often as we used to, but randomness is no less a part of our lives.

It’s always fascinating to play the “What if?” game of random chances that brought me to where I am now. My husband and I talk about it often. What if the Missouri River hadn’t flooded, bringing his family to Texas? What if I hadn’t skipped a grade in elementary school? I never would have met the people I met that shaped me the way I did, and I never would have applied to the University of Texas- I was going to A&M, just like my cousin and my uncles! He never would’ve applied to UT either, because why would he apply to some random state school half the country away? If we hadn’t both ended up at that same freshman orientation session, I never would’ve introduced myself to him. We wouldn’t have been best friends for two years. He wouldn’t have challenged my long-unquestioned beliefs or encouraged me to pursue my call to ministry. We would never have dated or gotten married. I certainly would never have moved to DC of my own volition. I could go on forever- what about our parents’ lives, or our grandparents’ lives? My life would be absolutely unfathomably different if a long string of random chances- stretching back thousands of years!- hadn’t brought me to where I am.

Some people would argue that this unfathomable string of coincidences was all part of God’s plan. Other people would take the opposite tack, arguing that if life is all chance then it has no meaning. I think I come down in the middle. I don’t believe in a deterministic God; I believe that there is a distinction between knowing what will happen and deciding what will happen. Or, as my Hebrew Bible professor liked to say, “All is foreseen but freedom is given.” In high school I read a book by my favorite author, Ted Dekker, where the main character suddenly has the ability to see the future- or, more precisely, the futures. What he saw was the multitude of possible outcomes that would result from each choice he was faced with. That’s kind of how I imagine God. God sees all the ways that we could be, all the things we could do, and God hopes for our good choices, but our free will remains. And to me, that means that every choice I make has meaning. Every choice I make shapes my future in incalculable ways, extinguishing countless theoretical futures in favor of the one I created.