What If God’s Plan Makes Me Unhappy?
Wrestling with vocation, trust, and the fear of surrendering your dreams—why God’s call isn’t against your heart, but for it.
When I volunteered in youth ministry many years ago, I remember having a talk with a young man on a retreat. He had heard me discussing openness to vocation, that God is calling each of us to a vocation. He was conflicted because he had a plan for his life, things he wanted to do and become, but what if God was calling him to something different. What if God is calling him to something he doesn’t want to be and it makes him unhappy?
If I could explain it to him then how I understand it now, I would start with some questions.
Do you believe God is good? Do you believe God is all-knowing? Do you believe God loves you unconditionally?
If God knows everything—your past, present, and future—and if He loves you unconditionally and completely, more than anyone else ever could, then He will only call you to what fulfills you and brings you joy
You, with your limited knowledge and inability to see the future, have an idea of what would make you happy and you are very sure that this is what you want. But if we could talk to yourself 20 years from now, I wonder how you would look back on your life. Were you right? Maybe you were. Maybe you weren’t.
But God already knows what your life looks like in retrospect. He knows every twist, detour, and fork in the road—even the ones you haven’t seen yet. That doesn’t mean following God’s will guarantees a life without pain, loss, or failure or a life that’s always rosy. We live in a universe broken by sin. But it will be a life with more joy, more peace, and more love; less despair, less regret, and less fear.
What I told that young man then was that God’s plan for your life is not necessarily different from your plan for your life. When praying to discern God’s will, He’s not going to flash a neon sign in the sky telling you what to do. You pray for His will to be done, you stay in right relationship with Him, and then you act according to your conscience and good judgment. And then you pray that if the path you choose isn’t the best for you, that He will redirect you. Pray for Him to open the doors that lead to growth and joy and shut the ones that lead to regret or harm.
God calls us, but the calling is not in opposition to our heart’s desires—at least if we’re striving to love God.
If I recall correctly, the teen wanted to enlist in the Navy, but was afraid God would call him to the priesthood. I don’t remember if he felt promptings to become a priest or whether it was just his very devout mother’s promptings, but I do recall telling him that there were many young men who went to seminary and later left because it wasn’t what God wanted for them. But maybe God wanted them to be there to receive something specific, but not to become a priest. That happens.
But as I said, we don’t know the future. We think one path will bring joy. But maybe that path only leads to pain, sin, or even loss and death. Winning the lottery sounds great, but talk to people who have hit it big and you’ll often hear stories of how their lives became filled with new and bigger problems.
God calls us, but His invitation is not in opposition to our heart’s desires, at least if we’re striving to love God. He loves us and wants us to be happy. He gives us promptings in our hearts. He has formed us as the person we are today.
He doesn’t ask us to blindly rush into the future. What He wants is for us to say to Him, “I know You love me. I know You want joy for me. I love You and want to do Your will. I’m going to do what I think is right for me. Please help me to understand. Help me to do what is best.”
That’s all He asks. And really, it’s all we can do.