Many people believe that there is something bigger than us. There is a reason for everything. Some believe that everything is a coincidence. Some believe that coincidence is real and not fate. However, none of this can ever be truly proven. A coincidence is a seemingly planned sequence of accidentally occurring events. One might think the collision of events was fated to occur, but one is mistaken. It signified nothing. But searching, like we all do, for an explanation and a sense of importance, one creates his fate by spelling out meaning from a jumble of coincidences.

We’ve all had it happen to us. We think about someone we haven’t seen in a while, and later that same day, we bump into them. We have an ominous feeling that something bad is going to happen, and it does. We have a dream that predicts our future. We look back at events in our lives and see them fitting together like a puzzle. If one thinks to oneself, “If I hadn’t been in that exact place at that exact moment, my life would have gone in a totally different direction. I wouldn’t have met this or that person. I wouldn’t have done this thing or that thing. I would have taken that job instead of this one. I would have married that boy instead of my husband.” Is it all connected somehow? Or is it just a coincidence?

To many, fate only occurs on a personal level. Chain reactions exist, certainly, where one person’s behavior results in a massively far-reaching effect, but they are not ruled by fate. Incidents and chain reactions with a broader range of impact, such as the butterfly effect, have no intended purpose. It is fate that can play a triggering role within the intimate confines of a single person’s life. Sometimes, there are certain events in our lives that are just meant to happen. Those events happen for some reason in some person’s lifetime and are meant to influence only the person they happen to be with.

No doubt, coincidences happen too. Not every occurrence in a person’s life is fated. So what exactly is the difference between fate and coincidence? Rather, what evidence is there that fate exists in a world of randomness? That’s where personal faith comes in.