The problem with fate.

What is Fate?

It’s funny when we look at the things that happen in our lives. Anything good that happens is usually a direct result of our own hard work and determination. Sure there are times when we will give lip service to God but somehow, in the back of our minds, we all tend to have the idea that we are the ones that made the good thing happen. The idea that we pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. That all it takes is hard work and determination. So usually in fact mostly…when something good happens in our lives we love the credit…Equally when something bad happens, when times start to get hard, when we are not having the success we want, we tend to blame fate…to lay the blame somewhere else completely, to look for excuses and to shuffle off responsibility.

Fate is a great scapegoat. Which makes us not really like what we read in Proverbs.

Proverbs 11:27 HCSB

The one who searches for what is good finds favor, but if someone looks for trouble, it will come to him.

This verse in proverbs actually takes away the hand of Fate.

What are you looking for?

We live in a very divisive world. There is so much going on, and all of it is going on so fast that it’s easy to put ourselves into bubbles and forget what’s important in light of eternity. So lets do some back ground.

John 1:1–5 HCSB

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created. Life was in Him, and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness, yet the darkness did not overcome it.

This is important because of who this set of scripture is talking about. If we believe that Jesus is who we say he is, then we believe that he was fully God and Fully man. I can’t explain how that works and anyone that tells you they can is lying. John is doing something important as he opens his book. He is stating very clearly who Jesus is, he doesn’t just set Jesus as there when the world was created but has him (the Word) as an active participant, which of course leads us to the point of this little side bar. The Word was around when each of the scriptures we are talking about was written, and in fact had a hand in inspiring them.

1. God is more than willing to be in a personal relationship with humanity.

Psalm 37:23 HCSB

A man’s steps are established by the Lord, and He takes pleasure in his way.

a. I don’t make plans for people I don’t care about and that I don’t want to be around.

b. I don’t delight in or take pleasure in strangers, and people I don’t care about.

Relationship by it’s very nature requires communication. Every relationship has communication both good ones and bad ones.

And it is in that communication that a relationship grows in strength or devolves into chaos.

God does have a plan for our lives…but

a. We are in charge of the blueprints…

Brock Turner had plans, they were good plans, he was a successful swimmer, a exceptional student, He received a 60% scholarship to Stanford. The plan was set. The blueprints mapped out, hopes of the Olympics could be realized. I believe that God gave Brock Turner a gift. He gave him a mind that according to his father and his acceptance to Stanford was more than average, he even garnered the top gpa of all freshmen on his swim team his first and only Semester at Stanford. God gave Brock Turner the materials, Brock and His family drew up the blueprints..and then Brock picked them up and headed out to begin the process of moving from the planning phase to completion..and it is here that Brock took the plans and the talents and did what he wanted to with them as opposed to following them to their end

Honorable Judge Aaron Persky,

When Carleen and I took Brock to Stanford in September 2014 to begin his freshman year, we both felt he was totally prepared for the experience. He had been to many national level swim camps and meets and was comfortable being away from home. We were very excited for Brock as he settled into Stanford during that first quarter as a brand new student athlete. He excelled in school that quarter earning the top GPA for all freshmen on the swim team. What we didn’t realize was the extent to which Brock was struggling being so far from home. Brock was working hard to adapt to the rigors of both school and swimming. When Brock was home during Christmas break, he broke down and told us how much he was struggling to fit in socially and the fact that he did not like being so far from home. Brock was nearly-distraught knowing that he had to return early from Christmas break for swimming training camp. We even questioned whether it was the right move to send him back to Stanford for the winter quarter. In hindsight, it’s clear that Brock was desperately trying to fit in at Stanford and fell into the culture of alcohol consumption and partying. This culture was modeled by many of the upperclassmen on the swim team and played a role in the events of Jan 17th and 18th 2015. Looking back at Brock’s brief experience at Stanford, I honestly don’t believe it was the best fit for him. He was ready academically and athletically, but it was simply too far from home for someone who was born and raised in the Midwest. He needed the support structure of being closer to family and friends.

As it stands now, Brock’s life has been deeply altered forever by the events of Jan 17th and 18th. He will never be his happy go lucky self with that easy going personality and welcoming smile. His every waking minute is consumed with worry, anxiety, fear, and depression. You can see this in his face, the way he walks, his weakened voice, his lack of appetite. Brock always enjoyed certain types of food and is a very good cook himself. I was always excited to buy him a big ribeye steak to grill or to get his favorite snack for him. I had to make sure to hide some of my favorite pretzels or chips because I knew they wouldn’t be around long after Brock walked in from a long swim practice. Now he barely consumes any food and eats only to exist. These verdicts have broken and shattered him and our family in so many ways. His life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve. That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life. The fact that he now has to register as a sexual offender for the rest of his life forever alters where he can live, visit, work, and how he will be able to interact with people and organizations. What I know as his father is that incarceration is not the appropriate punishment for Brock. He has no prior criminal history and has never been violent to anyone including his actions on the night of Jan 17th 2015. Brock can do so many positive things as a contributor to society and is totally committed to educating other college age students about the dangers of alcohol consumption and sexual promiscuity. By having people like Brock educate others on college campuses is how society can begin to break the cycle of binge drinking and its unfortunate results. Probation is the best answer for Brock in this situation and allows him to give back to society in a net positive way.

Very Respectfully,

Dan A. Turner

Our Choices Matter

i. Another letter was written this one was read by Brock Turners victim to Him and the Judge that passed what in most peoples estimation was a deplorable sentence. It’s 13 pages and contains painful disturbing language but I want to read a couple portions of it here.

On January 17th, 2015, it was a quiet Saturday night at home. My dad made some dinner and I sat at the table with my younger sister who was visiting for the weekend. I was working full time and it was approaching my bed time. I planned to stay at home by myself, watch some TV and read, while she went to a party with her friends. Then, I decided it was my only night with her, I had nothing better to do, so why not, there’s a dumb party ten minutes from my house, I would go, dance like a fool, and embarrass my younger sister. On the way there, I joked that undergrad guys would have braces. My sister teased me for wearing a beige cardigan to a frat party like a librarian. I called myself “big mama”, because I knew I’d be the oldest one there. I made silly faces, let my guard down, and drank liquor too fast not factoring in that my tolerance had significantly lowered since college.

What was a seemingly mundane choice and should have had no major consequences, what was a choice that a lot of people would safely make ended up changing a young woman's life for the worse. The crimes committed against her that night were not her fault, there is no excuse for Brocks actions but she made a choice that would forever alter her life.

2. See one thing we have in common is that we were both unable to get up in the morning. I am no stranger to suffering. You made me a victim. In newspapers my name was “unconscious intoxicated woman”, ten syllables, and nothing more than that. For a while, I believed that that was all I was. I had to force myself to relearn my real name, my identity. To relearn that this is not all that I am. That I am not just a drunk victim at a frat party found behind a dumpster, while you are the All­ American swimmer at a top university, innocent until proven guilty, with so much at stake. I am a human being who has been irreversibly hurt, my life was put on hold for over a year, waiting to figure out if I was worth something.

My independence, natural joy, gentleness, and steady lifestyle I had been enjoying became distorted beyond recognition. I became closed off, angry, self deprecating, tired, irritable, empty. The isolation at times was unbearable. You cannot give me back the life I had before that night either. While you worry about your shattered reputation, I refrigerated spoons every night so when I woke up, and my eyes were puffy from crying, I would hold the spoons to my eyes to lessen the swelling so that I could see. I showed up an hour late to work every morning, excused myself to cry in the stairwells, I can tell you all the best places in that building to cry where no one can hear you. The pain became so bad that I had to explain the private details to my boss to let her know why I was leaving. I needed time because continuing day to day was not possible. I used my savings to go as far away as I could possibly be. I did not return to work full time as I knew I’d have to take weeks off in the future for the hearing and trial, that were constantly being rescheduled. My life was put on hold for over a year, my structure had collapsed.

I can’t sleep alone at night without having a light on, like a five year old, because I have nightmares of being touched where I cannot wake up, I did this thing where I waited until the sun came up and I felt safe enough to sleep. For three months, I went to bed at six o’clock in the morning.

I used to pride myself on my independence, now I am afraid to go on walks in the evening, to attend social events with drinking among friends where I should be comfortable being. I have become a little barnacle always needing to be at someone’s side, to have my boyfriend standing next to me, sleeping beside me, protecting me. It is embarrassing how feeble I feel, how timidly I move through life, always guarded, ready to defend myself, ready to be angry.

You have no idea how hard I have worked to rebuild parts of me that are still weak. It took me eight months to even talk about what happened. I could no longer connect with friends, with everyone around me. I would scream at my boyfriend, my own family whenever they brought this up. You never let me forget what happened to me. At the of end of the hearing, the trial, I was too tired to speak. I would leave drained, silent. I would go home turn off my phone and for days I would not speak. You bought me a ticket to a planet where I lived by myself. Every time a new article come out, I lived with the paranoia that my entire hometown would find out and know me as the girl who got assaulted. I didn’t want anyone’s pity and am still learning to accept victim as part of my identity. You made my own hometown an uncomfortable place to be.

You cannot give me back my sleepless nights. The way I have broken down sobbing uncontrollably if I’m watching a movie and a woman is harmed, to say it lightly, this experience has expanded my empathy for other victims. I have lost weight from stress, when people would comment I told them I’ve been running a lot lately. There are times I did not want to be touched. I have to relearn that I am not fragile, I am capable, I am wholesome, not just livid and weak.

When I see my younger sister hurting, when she is unable to keep up in school, when she is deprived of joy, when she is not sleeping, when she is crying so hard on the phone she is barely breathing, telling me over and over again she is sorry for leaving me alone that night, sorry sorry sorry, when she feels more guilt than you, then I do not forgive you. That night I had called her to try and find her, but you found me first. Your attorney’s closing statement began, “[Her sister] said she was fine and who knows her better than her sister.” You tried to use my own sister against me? Your points of attack were so weak, so low, it was almost embarrassing. You do not touch her.

You should have never done this to me. Secondly, you should have never made me fight so long to tell you, you should have never done this to me. But here we are. The damage is done, no one can undo it. And now we both have a choice. We can let this destroy us, I can remain angry and hurt and you can be in denial, or we can face it head on, I accept the pain, you accept the punishment, and we move on.

Your life is not over, you have decades of years ahead to rewrite your story. The world is huge, it is so much bigger than Palo Alto and Stanford, and you will make a space for yourself in it where you can be useful and happy. But right now, you do not get to shrug your shoulders and be confused anymore. You do not get to pretend that there were no red flags. You have been convicted of violating me, intentionally, forcibly, sexually, with malicious intent, and all you can admit to is consuming alcohol. Do not talk about the sad way your life was upturned because alcohol made you do bad things. Figure out how to take responsibility for your own conduct

So far not only has Brock but his entire family has not owned up to the choices he made that night. Preferring to sweep them away gloss over them and in his mothers case act like they never happened.

We do the same thing we choose the path to take and when things don’t work out or we are unhappy with the outcome we like to ignore the choice we made that brought us to the place we are in and begin the blame game.

We are in charge of the blueprint that is our life.

1. We will stumble.

a. Every reading of this weeks text makes one thing clear. We are going to mess up. It’s a foregone conclusion. Everyone stumbles, everyone falls down. Everyone sins and in doing so has their life derailed some momentarily some for a lifetime… Elaborate.

2. God isn’t as concerned with when we stumble as he is with what we do when he tightens his grip.

a. Elaborate

This Week’s Challenge

Stop blaming fate. Start actively following the path set down by the God you serve. No more excuses, no more finger pointing, no more giving up because you’re just not good enough. Lean into the God you claim to serve and walk in his power.