Destiny or Fate

My good friend Josh Wyciskalla asked the following question via facebook and this blog is to comemorate his question: I enjoy being able to choose my own destiny, but I thought: When we choose our destiny, do we also choose our fate? Are those things different, synonymous or entirely unrelated?

This is my answer:
But first a quote by Henry Emerson Fosdick: “Oh my soul, look to the road to which you are traveling on. He who picks up one end of the stick picks up the other. He who chooses the beginning of the road chooses the place to which it leads.” When you pick up one end of a stick you have no choice in picking up the other end as well. Every time you make a choice you cannot help the consequence that follows. Weither bad or good.

Fate is synonymous with consequence (Webster’s American English Thesaurus, New Edition, 2006.) But some people see destiny as synonymous to fate, as fate is to a final outcome regardless of choice. This is usually a statement that has been portrayed by those individuals who advocate that there is no God. For those who claim to believe such through both word and/or action, can’t help but think to themselves, what’s the difference? To them, after you die, that’s it. Ultimately, in the end we’re all ending up in the same place regardless of our choices here in life. To such an individual, fate and destiny might as well be synonymous. But for those of us who choose to believe that this life isn’t meaningless, that it isn’t going nowhere, or isn’t just some random fluke of chance, we not only exclaim there is a God (or some form of Higher Being) we show that we know it through our actions. By the choices we’re making to better not only ourselves, but also the lives all around us. Believing that our choices do matter is the difference of opinion our two views hold. Ultimately, our destiny IS whatever we choose to make of it. Despite all the foreknowledge God does have and any foreknowledge we could have. While fate is what comes as the consequences to both our actions and inactions. It is the consequence of forfeiting our agency.

In short the question we each need to ask ourselves isn't, What do we want our destiny to be? The correct question we should be asking oureselves is, Where do we want our final destin(y)ation to be? So let us look to the road which we are traveling on, and may the choices we make now lead us to where our hearts desire.
"But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15