Does some unknown force draw you closer and closer to the mission for which your life was intended?

Do we even think in these antiquated terms anymore?

I was destined...to see a movie

A few weeks ago I watched, a little late, the cinematic blockbuster from early summer 2010, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. It's an exciting action-adventure movie with plenty of dazzling special effects and exotic locations and costumes, and it contained the requisite social/political message buried (not very subtly) in the plot line.

The actual storyline pertains to a Persian street urchin, Dastan, who is adopted by the emperor and becomes a prince of the land, sometime in the ancient past. Persia is mythologized in this production, so please don't watch it and assume that it's remotely historically accurate.

As a young man, Dastan and his brothers declare war on a holy city that is the residing place of a dagger containing special sand able to turn back time for one minute. As the story progresses, we find that the dagger is actually the key to a larger block of sand that, if let loose completely, will destroy the world by turning time back all the way to the beginning.

Naturally the bad guy in the movie wants to do just that. So Dastan and the plucky heroine, Princess Tamina, are both "destined" to save the dagger and protect the big block of time-swallowing sand. Through the course of the movie both Dastan and Tamina, despite their differences, come to understand that they were called for the job. However, Dastan also believes that you can make your own destiny.

It's like it was meant to be

The film made me wonder, do we actually have a destiny? Is it a quasi-mystical calling that directs us irresistibly toward an endpoint regardless of what we want to do? Or are we the masters of our own fate?

Yes. Yes and no. And, yes. Got that?

We do have a destiny, and it is driving us irresistibly toward an endpoint, but we are not powerless in its grasp. We were not made simply to live and die pointlessly and meaninglessly. On the other hand, we weren't destined only for one moment, one action in time after which we sink back into obscurity.

Marvelously, the entirety of humankind, past, present and future, is destined for a greater existence than this physical one. The entire story—plot line, if you will—of the Bible explains the origin, plan and execution of this destiny for the whole human race.

Your destiny, your choice

God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, are a family and are in the business of expanding that family. We are candidates for adoption, but that's where the personal choice part of destiny comes in. We have to want to be a part of that greater family and prove our willingness by repenting of our sins and obeying the commandments of God.

Actually, if the world obeyed the commandments, life would be much better now. But God's law is more than that. It's a training tool, teaching us how to live God's way of life—loving and unselfish—and shaping our character for the spiritual life to come.

This is our future—and ultimately—the future of all humanity:

"Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He [Jesus Christ] is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2, emphasis added).

You can learn more about this incomprehensibly fantastic destiny by reading the free booklet What Is Your Destiny?