The Unlived Life

Reflections on calling, sacrifice, and God’s surprising faithfulness in the ordinary

In episode 5 of season 3 of The Crown, Queen Elizabeth II—played beautifully by Olivia Colman—embarks on a month-long journey to study horse breeding and racing. The Queen is temporarily released from the rigid life of royal duties and finds unexpected joy in this simple, focused experience. In a moment of honesty, she tells a friend it has been one of the best times of her life:

“On days like today, in places like this, in company like this, you get a glimpse of what it all might have been like: the unlived life, and how much happier it might have made me.”

This moment of joy flows from her chance to live “the unlived life.” And that phrase has stayed with me ever since.

For Elizabeth, that life wasn’t a fantasy of indulgence or escape. It was simply different—something less constrained and possibly more natural to her. She was doing the things she had loved from childhood. And yet, because of who she was and what had been laid upon her shoulders, it was a life she could never have.

Most of us aren’t royalty. But that feeling? That ache for the unlived life? It’s at least somewhat familiar to all of us. There’s something in us that occasionally wonders what life might have been—if we’d taken a different job, moved to a different city, made one different decision.

Sometimes we taste it in brief moments—on a vacation, during a retreat, or in the moments of release after someone else handles our usual responsibilities. It’s that inner voice whispering: What if this were normal? What if this were my actual life?

Many people assume Queen Elizabeth was always destined for the crown. But the truth is, she wore it because someone else walked away.

The story goes back to her uncle, Edward—charismatic, controversial, and briefly, the king. He wanted to marry a woman who had already been divorced twice. At the time, that was more than a personal complication—it was a nationwide crisis. As monarch and head of the Church of England, he couldn’t marry her and remain king. So, in an unprecedented move, he chose love over duty and gave up the throne.

His younger brother, George VI, stepped in—reluctantly. Shy, soft-spoken, and battling a stutter, he became king with war looming over Europe. He wasn’t groomed for the role, but he bore it admirably, leading the nation through its darkest hour in World War II.

George had two daughters. The older of the two, Elizabeth, was only twenty-five when her father died. In a moment, her life changed forever, not through her ambition or desire, but by inheritance. She didn’t chase the crown, but it still came for her.

The Ache of the Unchosen Path

I trained for a different life. My background is in finance. I planned for financial stability and upward mobility. But only months into that first post-grad job, I knew something was off. I didn’t last long.

That began a slow unraveling of the life I had planned—and the beginning of the life God had prepared.

The shift wasn’t dramatic initially. It was quiet. A prayer here. A volunteer role there. I stepped into seminary with more questions than clarity. Pastoral ministry was never the dream. It was a calling that formed me even as I resisted it.

And yet, the desire for the unlived life—the financial career, the prestige, the up and to the right paycheck—has never entirely disappeared. It shows up in questions I don’t always say aloud. What would life look like now if I had stayed? What would my wife’s life be like? Would my kids have more? Would I be more secure, more confident, more free?

There is a sacrifice when it comes to the given life. To embrace your actual life—the one with limitations and disappointments and struggles—is to let go of the unlived life.

This isn’t bitterness. It’s not even regret. It’s simply the grief that sometimes accompanies obedience.

The Biblical Pattern: Jacob’s Struggle

Scripture is not silent on this experience. Consider Jacob.

From the beginning, he is marked by striving—reaching for what isn’t his. He comes into the world grasping his brother’s heel. He schemes to steal Esau’s birthright, manipulates his father for the blessing, and spends much of his early life on the run.

What Jacob longs for is not just material gain, but identity. He isn’t content to be Jacob. He wants to be someone else. He wants to live a life other than his own.

And yet, it’s only when he wrestles with God at the Jabbok (Genesis 32) that he finally receives a new name—Israel. The blessing comes not through manipulation, but through surrender.

He walks away with a limp—a visible reminder that the path of striving left its mark. But he also walks away with a new understanding: that God blesses us not in the life we steal or imagine, but in the life we actually live—the one given by grace.

Chris Renzema captures this tension in his song Jacob:

And I know that I'm not right
But I'm still putting up a fight
And I know my hands can't hold all I aim to steal
And I know that there is a cure
For this sickness my heart endures
But it's hard to walk naked into the light

It is hard to let go of the unlived life. Hard to believe that the given life is enough.

But God meets us there—in the light. In the given. In the limits.

The Beauty of the Given Life

In a world where personal freedom is prized above nearly everything else, the Christian confession that life is received—not invented—cuts against the grain. We do not choose the century into which we're born, the place we first breathe air, or the people who raise us.

These are not random details. They are gifts—sometimes mysterious, sometimes painful, but gifts nonetheless. They are the very contours of God's providence.

Paul’s words in Acts 17 remind us that God has determined “the periods of our lives and the boundaries of our dwelling places.” In other words, the lives we’ve been handed—the stories we inherited before we ever spoke a word—are not incidental to our spiritual formation. They are the setting in which we are meant to encounter God.

Embracing the givenness of life means resisting the illusion that meaning is something we must manufacture for ourselves. It means receiving our existence from God despite the difficulty of its terrain: rough in places, but sacred all the same.

This doesn't come naturally. From a young age, we’re trained to dream, chart our course, and “be whatever we want to be.” But that narrative often leads to exhaustion rather than joy.

When we try to author our own identities from scratch, we bear the full weight of sustaining them, too. And eventually, the burden of self-invention becomes too much. We weren't made to carry the world, or even ourselves.

There is rest, oddly enough, in limits. Rest in not being self-made.

If I don’t have to create myself, I don’t have to save myself either.

That kind of freedom isn’t flashy. It doesn’t make for an impressive resume or viral testimony. But it makes for a rooted life—one that acknowledges the wisdom of God in the particulars: our geography, our body, our family, our church.

Grateful for What Is

In many ways this is how I find myself serving as a pastor of a local church. I didn’t stumble into it through an extraordinary breakthrough. I didn’t suddenly feel "called" in a dramatic way. What I felt was quieter—something like settledness.

Opportunities came. Not in headline-grabbing ways, but in steady, faithful ones. God’s provision became more visible. I began to see fruit—not from ambition or chasing another life, but from simply remaining where I was placed.

Jesus said, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself… neither can you, unless you abide in me” (John 15:4).

That word abide is key. It doesn’t mean sprint. It doesn’t mean strive. It means stay. Remain. Live in. Sometimes, abiding looks like daily faithfulness in the life you didn’t dream of—but the one God shaped for you.

If I had chased the life I once imagined, I may have missed the gifts hidden in the one I’ve been given.

The unlived life is always more romantic than real. It is shiny but vague, free from the limitations that make real life meaningful. The given life, on the other hand, is rooted. Yes, it is sometimes inconvenient, but always significant in ordinary ways.

In that spirit, my prayer for you is simple:

May God bless your given life.

May you have the courage to release the unlived one.

May you see His fingerprints in your routines, His grace in your responsibilities, and His mercy in your limits.

May you not only accept, but embrace where He has placed you.

For in Christ, no path faithfully walked is ever wasted.