Once upon a time (...in a far away land) there were two LDS missionaries who played basketball.  One day, they contacted a teenage guy about their age who also played basketball, and regularly met up together for pickup games with he and his friends.

This young man hung out with the missionaries at the basketball court on a regular basis, and--after they asked--started hanging out with them on Sundays at their church as well.    Soon, they asked him to be baptized, and he was.  Then the elders moved away, and, as it happened, their replacements didn't have much interest in basketball.

This new convert, when asked, always (in a somewhat proud fashion) told people he was Mormon...although the fact of the matter was, he never went to church again after his basketball partners moved, nor read any scripture, nor kept any covenant.  He had no real interest in 'religion'--never really did, in fact--and had no interest in any fellow Church member except as playing partners for sports.

He was, in every respect, one of those (many) people who get baptized for the wrong reasons, and become just another name on an inactive list that someone in the local ward or branch has to worry about--and assign home teachers to--ad infinitum.

Fast forward a few years--now 23, this young man finishes college and finds a serious girlfriend.  Often, when he and she are together, they are accompanied by his girlfriend's close friend from childhood who would hang out with them.  One day, the subject of religion came up between the three of them.

"Did you know I'm Mormon?" this young man said, suddenly.

"Mor...mon?" asked the friend, "Never heard of it..."

"It's one of those 'Jesus-churches', you know..."

"Really, you go to church?"

"Oh, no...haven't been to church in years."

"Oh.  So do you believe in it at all?"

"Nah, not really..."

"Oh."

She paused.

"So, like, what do you do there?"

"Oh, you know...church stuff.  Pray.  Service.  Learn about doing good things more often."

"Do you do any of that stuff now?"

"Nah..."

Fast forward a few more weeks, though, and this friend sees two "Mormon" missionaries on the other side of the street.  Curious, she runs over and contacts them, wanting to know more.  Fast forward a month or two and she is baptized.  Fast forward another year, and she's now living in America doing service with the foreign language missionaries at the MTC and meets a guy also doing service at the MTC (that would be me).  We've been married for six years now.

An analysis of the long and twisted path that led my wife to baptism (and to marriage to me) provides an interesting case study as to 'fate' and 'destiny'--and how things 'just happen' to work out.

Many (including myself) are critical of missionaries who baptize people that it should be obvious are getting baptized for the wrong reasons.  Inactivity is a constant problem in the Church, not helped when member lists are overloaded with people who never really developed a testimony of the gospel from the beginning (and, of course, are less likely to do so after the fact...)

And, yet:

1. My wife has been a wonderful member--strong and faithful in every respect.
2. She wouldn't have joined if it weren't for this inactive member, who nonetheless was her first exposure to the gospel (in name, at least...) 
   

Was his conversion--flawed from the beginning--still part of some intricate 'divine plan' for my wife where things were 'arranged' by an unseen hand to bring the gospel into her life?   Or perhaps she would have been introduced to the gospel inevitably regardless of whether this guy happened to join (and date her best friend) or not?  Or...perhaps her baptism was just a sheer coincidence--where a hundred different factors randomly aligned happened to introduce her to the gospel where a handful of other girls in Taiwan with the same potential interest would have wound up in the same place had they been in the right place at the right time...but currently due to circumstance remain oblivious?

Briefly, we might mention a few details from my story:

I graduate from BYU (single...aren't you supposed to get your tuition refunded if that happens?), then meet a nice girl over the summer and we go out a few times.

One day, I'm helping her move into a new apartment, when the elders quorum president of the local ward visits and--while I'm present (?!?)--asks her out for the next day.   She says yes, and--you know where this is going--informs me later that they went out and he proposed to her afterwards and she...well, didn't say 'yes', exactly, but agreed to at least date and see what happens.

Fast forward a couple of days, the MTC needs Chinese-speaking volunteers, and since I (unexpectedly) now have free time without anything better to do, I show up, my (future) wife shows up as well, and...well, there you go.  (I know you're curious--I heard from mutual friends that the previous girl and her fiancé broke up a week later...)

Church members have various opinions on the role divine fate and destiny plays in their lives.  Are we pre-ordained, Saturday's Warrior-style, to marry a particular person...thus it's fated that elements are going to conspire to cause us to meet?  Or perhaps there are any number of suitable matches for marriage and you just pick from whatever options the thousand coincidences that your daily decisions (and everyone else's) cause to cross your path?

To what extent are potential investigators 'guided' to the missionaries (or vice versa)?  Or are there any number of prepared people and those who join in mortality are more or less determined only by circumstance and coincidence?

The basic question is:  Does God micro-manage the world?  If so, to what extent?

I suspect there are a wide range of opinions on the matter, and no way to discern what the correct answer is.  How you answer this question may depend on your own personality and how you view the direct role of the divine in your life.  When you hear stories in sacrament meeting (or General Conference) along the lines of "I lost my keys once, and then I prayed, and then miraculously I found them in the next place I looked!", you'll never be able to prove there was divine intervention rather than coincidence...but you can't prove there wasn't either.

(Continued on Friday...)

Discussion Questions:  How do you view the role of the divine in your life in terms of 'macro-' and 'micro-management'?  Do you think more people over- or under-estimate the direct divine guidance God gives us from day to day?   How does one recognize divine intervention (by any definition) in one's life?