RANDOMLY DIVINE?

     I wrote a blog entry the other day and was about to publish it, but I inadvertently did something and it disappeared. I couldn't recover it no matter how I tried. I started to rewrite it, but it just wasn't coming back--at least not as clearly as the first one. So, my only conclusion is that it wasn't meant to be, which is a very thought-provoking idea. As a matter of fact, I can't even remember the gist of it.
     In preaching class in seminary, various professors would tell us that we should always carry a small pocket-size notebook around with us, and at night, keep it on our nightstand because when sermon ideas come to us, if we don't write them down immediately, they'll be gone forever. I've had that happen several times during my career, so I guess I never learned that lesson very well. As a matter of fact, the same thing has been true for me in my writing. I will be on a walk on a beautiful day, thinking about what I imagine to be some great life theme, and I will say to myself, I need to write that down as soon as I get back to the car. Then I go on to other thoughts, leaving the one I just had to disappear into the vast universe of forgotten ideas.
     To carry that thought a little bit further, it leads me to say that maybe some things are meant to be and some are not. Some are the result of simply being human and some are, perhaps, the result of some divine filter at work in our lives to protect or guide us lest we get ourselves into an awkward, even troubling, situation that puts us in over our heads. I may be making too much of this, but I like to think that we are not altogether left to our own devices in navigating our way through the maze of life. 
     Sometimes along the way in my life journey, I have wondered how did I end up wherever I was at the time or in whatever situation I found myself. Was it the result of some random series of events or was it by unknowingly following a divinely intended course? It's not that easy to determine unless you are of a particular mindset or another, say, that the universe is totally random or that everything is the result of the hand of God.
     What I do know is that I believed I was suppose to go into the ministry, but I entered Princeton Theological Seminary with no financial backing, except with a few meager dollars in my checking account. It seemed like a decision made on very shaky ground, but then, PTS came through with some grants and a scholarship in preaching. One moment deeply questioning my decision; the next feeling affirmed that that's exactly where I was supposed to be.
     I think that many of us wonder about various scenarios of our lives--sometimes with regrets, sometimes with great celebration. What do they mean? What is the source of their origin? The truth is that we all mostly have to take responsibility for our lives; but in my own thinking, there is a divine hand that often is at work behind the scenes, quietly influencing the course we are on in order to help us live the reality we are meant to live. We probably aren't that good at following directions.
     What do you think?