C
Crdl2Grv
Guest
Some background:
I’ve been blessed to earn a living as a screenwriter for almost eight years now. There have certainly been some ups and downs along the way, but on the whole I’ve been very lucky. That, however, is the foundation of my question. I’m beginning to think my success has been due entirely to blind luck and I’m absolutely terrified that it could all go away at any minute and there’d be nothing I can do to stop it. I see it happen to other writers all the time.
I know that my talent is a gift from God. That gift, like all graces, is entirely undeserved; I have done nothing to “earn” it, so to speak. I used to have complete faith that I was living my vocation, that I had chosen precisely the life that God wanted me to choose. But now I’m not so sure.
Whenever I’d start a writing a script I would pray for God to give me the clarity and the drive to use the gift He had given me to the absolute best of my ability. And whenever I’d turn in a script, I would pray that God would open the hearts and the minds of the people who were reading it so that they may look kindly upon my work. (To be blunt, “the people” in the previous sentence could also be described as “folks who write the checks.”)
Here is my question: Can the latter prayer be reconciled with the concept of free will? In essence, my continued employment depends entirely upon the freely willed decisions of other people. How much influence can He really have over them without diminishing the gift of free will He gave to those very same people? Wouldn’t that latter prayer (“God, open their hearts and minds so that they may look kindly upon my work”) be one that God simply cannot answer? Or more accurately, wouldn’t His only possible answer be, “Sorry. I can’t do that.”
I find this concept pretty troubling because now, whenever I feel the urge to just “turn everything over to God,” there’s a part of me that says, “Yeah, that saying might look nice on the inside of a greeting card, but it doesn’t really work for you.”
I’ve been blessed to earn a living as a screenwriter for almost eight years now. There have certainly been some ups and downs along the way, but on the whole I’ve been very lucky. That, however, is the foundation of my question. I’m beginning to think my success has been due entirely to blind luck and I’m absolutely terrified that it could all go away at any minute and there’d be nothing I can do to stop it. I see it happen to other writers all the time.
I know that my talent is a gift from God. That gift, like all graces, is entirely undeserved; I have done nothing to “earn” it, so to speak. I used to have complete faith that I was living my vocation, that I had chosen precisely the life that God wanted me to choose. But now I’m not so sure.
Whenever I’d start a writing a script I would pray for God to give me the clarity and the drive to use the gift He had given me to the absolute best of my ability. And whenever I’d turn in a script, I would pray that God would open the hearts and the minds of the people who were reading it so that they may look kindly upon my work. (To be blunt, “the people” in the previous sentence could also be described as “folks who write the checks.”)
Here is my question: Can the latter prayer be reconciled with the concept of free will? In essence, my continued employment depends entirely upon the freely willed decisions of other people. How much influence can He really have over them without diminishing the gift of free will He gave to those very same people? Wouldn’t that latter prayer (“God, open their hearts and minds so that they may look kindly upon my work”) be one that God simply cannot answer? Or more accurately, wouldn’t His only possible answer be, “Sorry. I can’t do that.”
I find this concept pretty troubling because now, whenever I feel the urge to just “turn everything over to God,” there’s a part of me that says, “Yeah, that saying might look nice on the inside of a greeting card, but it doesn’t really work for you.”