The Futility Of Desire
This is a reprint from my blog Feb 2021
Memories birth desires to relive days of youth;
desires ungranted and unfulfilled,
desires unattainable,
desires unwise,
the arrogance of expectation.
Have you ever wished you could travel back in time and give your younger self some advice? I have at times indulged in this fruitless exercise. Fruitless it is, because our destiny does not offer the opportunity to travel back in time and undo the things we have done or reverse the choices we have made, much as we may desire to do so. Futile though it may be, I’m going to indulge in this exercise today.
If I could travel back in time 30 years, I would tell my 16-year-old self, “Don’t join the Amish church. That’s not your calling, not your destiny. It will not benefit your life, and it’s not part of the plan. Just be patient. Don’t be fearful; trust God through your teenage years and follow the path He has for you as it develops.”
At 16 years of age, I was baptized on my confession of faith. That act of baptism automatically made me a member of the “New Order” Amish church in Union Grove, North Carolina. I would still consider it a pretty good Amish church compared to many of them. We had more modern conveniences than many Amish do. The farmers had modern equipment like tractors and combines. We even had electricity and telephones, so you might say we were on the cutting edge of Amish society. As young people, many of us chafed under the rules and senseless traditions, but all in all, I guess it wasn’t a bad place to grow up.
There is some variety in Amish young people. Some of them grow up and cheerfully embrace that way of life. They like those rules, that rigid society, and the feeling of protection and comfort it gives them. The more free-thinking youth struggle under that same system, and I was one of those. I was a quiet, laid-back person who didn’t cause a lot of problems, but I can never remember a time that I felt like I fit in or that I expected to remain Amish. I remember as early as age 8 or 10 I had already determined that this was not the life for me. However, if you grow up in the Amish church, that’s the only life and world you know. You hear that teaching week after week and year by year: to be a Christian and approved by God, you must obey. You must fit into the system, you must become part of the church, and you must remain Amish. As a young person, even though I didn’t really believe all that stuff, I couldn’t see a way out of it.
Even as a child, I never felt like I quite fit in with the other Amish kids. It was probably just me, perhaps a reflection of my personality, but I was always a bit aloof and never committed myself to friendships and social activity even as a teenager.
In the Amish church, we received a confusing mixture of Bible teaching alongside cultural traditions that were presented as equally authoritative. When I was baptized and became a member of the church, I got the “privilege” of being present at insufferable meetings where erring members were rebuked for breaking rules as insignificant as a man being outside the house without a hat or a woman having untied covering strings.
But I’m getting off subject here . . . Looking back 30 years later, it doesn’t seem as if I gained anything by becoming a part of the Amish church. If I could go back, I would not repeat that mistake. I would just wait till I’m 18 or perhaps 21 or whatever age seems appropriate, and then just move off and do my thing. In fact, I would say joining the Amish church set me on a rather circuitous path to finding my calling and destiny for my life, one that I’m still reaching for 30 years later. Far-reaching indeed are the effects of choices we make so blindly in our teenage years.
When you’re a teenager, it’s difficult to push against the expectations of the church and your family. You naturally want to respect your elders, and it would have been considered unconscionable for me at that time to attend any church except the Amish one. That attitude is perhaps one of my biggest gripes about the Amish people. They’re very much a separated subculture of America, and there are pros and cons to that.
I previously mentioned some young people who grow up in that system naturally gravitate toward it. For those people, it’s easy, but the Amish give no liberty to their young people to pursue other options they may desire for their life. I can concede to an Amish person that maybe he is following God’s calling and destiny for his life. However, how can he be so presumptuous as to insist that he knows without question that every one of his children has the same purpose? How can he be sure that God could not possibly have any other plan for them besides being Amish?
If I could give the Amish people one piece of advice, it would be simply that if you feel like God wants you to be Amish, fine and dandy. Just don’t assume the same for your children and everyone else. Rather, give them a real opportunity and liberty to make a choice. Let them—nay, encourage them—to discover the talents, calling, and destiny God has for them. Accept the fact that being Amish may not be what God has for them. Give your young people a realistic choice without all the pressure and guilt that you pile on them if they dare try something else.
On the surface, I could say no harm was done by joining the church and following those rules for a few years. However, when I stop and consider how the trajectory of my life might have changed if I had done otherwise, I can’t help wishing I could tell 16-year-old me, “It’s okay. Just hang in there. You’re not rebellious, sinful, or evil. This simply is not your destiny, and these are not your people.”
I’m sure we all have things we wish we could go back and redo, and this is one of them for me. It’s not something that I dwell on very much, but I can’t help wondering how my life would have been different if I had been given real choices and opportunities when I was growing up. When I think of the dreams and desires that I was afraid to voice back then, there’s not much question that joining the Amish church was a step in the wrong direction for me. But it is what it is. Life rolls on, we make choices for good or bad, we make a lot of mistakes, and yet somehow, we end up on the path that our Creator has planned for us. Why, what, and how, we often don’t understand.
So it goes, one generation after the other, walking in the fog of our own confusion. We’re entrusted with our own families and children while we’re still trying to determine our own purpose and calling in life. Filled with regret and uncertainty we often are while our Creator smiles upon us and says . . .
“Foolish child,
you don’t understand my ways and my plans.
You ARE where you are because I placed you there.
Keep walking the journey;
it’s all part of my plan for you.”