Guest Column / Richard Etienne

Looks in rearview mirror show detours part of God’s plan

The older I get, the more I appreciate the little detours that have been part of my life journey.

“Way back” in high school, I did well in math and science so my guidance counselor suggested that I study engineering in college. I took off for Purdue University.

But after many credit hours in calculus, physics and chemistry in my freshman year, I decided that engineering was not for me. I switched schools and decided to study business so that I would be better prepared for being a priest since a parish pastor was the next path that I began to see ahead of me.

But when I met my future wife, I realized that my vocation was not to be a priest. I took a job in youth ministry and began to work on my master’s degree at St. Meinrad School of Theology.

After 10 years and the birth of our third child, I again shifted careers to the field of financial advice, which allowed me to be home with my family on most evenings and weekends.

Where am I going with this? I believe that God has a plan for each of us, but it is best recognized only through time, looking back through the rearview mirror. Some experiences that appeared at first to be “failures” were just detours that God used to bring me to the next destination in his plan. In St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, we read that “all things work for good for those who love God” (Rom 8:28).

I recently was encouraged to listen to a 2005 commencement speech by the late Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, Inc., who was expounding on the importance of “connecting the dots”—seeing where each step in our past played a role in bringing each of us to where we are now.

As Catholic Christians, we believe that God has a plan and we have a role to play if we will only cooperate. Part of that process is periodically reflecting on our lives, where we have been and where we might currently be called to serve.

I have been in spiritual direction for nearly 40 years. Once a month, I discuss the past month and any patterns that I see emerging in my life as well as how God might be urging me to grow in my faith. This spiritual direction is the largest piece of an ongoing reflective process in my life.

When has God taken you on a detour that turned out to be the “right” path when viewed through a quick glance in your rearview mirror? What are you currently being urged to do to grow in your own faith?
 

(Richard Etienne is a member of St. John the Baptist Parish in Newburgh, Ind., in the Evansville Diocese.) †