Living By Choice

Every day each one of us is faced with different situations that may arise. Whether these are good or bad situations each and every one of them has to be dealt with. In life one can’t just sit back and expect life to take its course.  As infants we have to rely on our parents to raise us up so that we are able to fend for ourselves. As adults we have choices to make that will affect the rest of our lives. What I’m trying to get at is the belief in predestination, and the fact that life consists of more than just a higher power (God) saying what you will become from the moment you are created.

I am reading this book called Jasmine, by Bharati Mukherjee, with the main character named Jasmine. This book is full of great discussion topics. I have chosen to write on the fact that predestination does not apply directly to life. As a small child jasmine was thrown into the idea that her life has already been planned out for her. She was hit on the head because she rebelled against this belief even as a child. She hated the idea that some man in the house was going to tell exactly what her life was going to amount to. Frankly, I agree with how Jasmine has handled this situation in India. If someone told me at a young age that I would only be a certain someone and nothing more I would be outraged. Jasmine and I both agree that we have the ability to choose what we do in our lives.

On pages 54-57 in the book there is a short story that justifies this in a more supernatural way. Jasmine loved to go out to the river early with all the women from the village she lived in. they went out there to do their bodily business because the bathrooms in the village were horrible. The times out there were full of gossip and laughter. One morning there was a rapid crazy grotesque dog that had jumped into the middle of all the ladies out by the river. The dog, out of all the ladies crawling and cowering in fear picked Jasmine as its prey. Now jasmine knew this as soon as she made eye contact with the animal. As the dog crept closer to her se realized that she was going to have to do something or her destiny would be complete. As the dog leapt to kill its prey, jasmine stabbed a staff right threw the dogs head. Thus she was safe and had destroyed her destroyer.

Unknowingly jasmine had defied the idea of predestination with one simple even in her life. The dog had chosen jasmine to kill but jasmine had other plans with what she wanted to happen. She chooses to kill the dog before the dog killed her. Jasmines life has been full of situations like these that slowly define what she is going to become. Instead of crawling into a ball and waiting for the dog to choose who it will kill like many of the ladies she was with, Jasmine decided to fight back and define what she wants to become.

At the end of this clip of the book the ladies help jasmine to her feet and take her home. The character Dida says, “All it means is the God doesn’t think you’re ready for salvation”(P.57). To me this is implementing that God has chosen when and where and how Jasmine is ready die. I agree that God knows when and where and how we will all die. Before that point in time comes we have the ability to choose what will happen to us. Just as jasmine has chosen not to let others define her future, No dog is going to take her life from her when she is just beginning to live. God wants each and every one of us to choose him for the fact that he loves us so much and has created us to love him back. We untimely decide whether we want salvation in Christ or not, it is our decision to chose God or not. We are not predestined. Jasmine knows this and will make the choices she wants to define her destiny.