- What does it mean to you to be "fearfully and wonderfully made"?
- How do people live who know they have a purpose? How do people live who believe they have NO purpose?
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Day 2 – You are NOT an Accident
You are not an accident!
Your birth was no mistake or mishap, and your life is no fluke of nature. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. He was not at all surprised by your birth. In fact, he expected it. God never does anything accidentally, and he never makes mistakes. He has a reason for everything he creates.
“Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love.” Ephesians 1:4a (Msg)
Why did God bother to go to all the trouble of creating a universe for us? Because he is a God of love. This kind of love is difficult to fathom, but it’s fundamentally reliable. You were created as a special object of God’s love! God made you so he could love you. This is a truth to build your life on!
I feel sorry for a child when his parent(s) tells him that he is an “accident.” How cruel, demoralizing, humilitating, and destabilizing. What poor stewardship by the parent(s) of such a precious, God-given gift. I was truly blessed, in that from the first time that I could remember anything, my parents, especially my dad, told me that I was wanted more by them than anything they could ever imagine. I actually have the letter written by my father during World War II when he told my mother that their first child would be a girl with blue eyes and blonde hair, and he even told Mother my name. Because of the love they always had for me and because of how they always made me feel wanted and not an accident, I can easily understand the concept that God loves and wants each of us and none of us are accidents.
Knowing that God put us on the earth for a reason and that He knew what that purpose was long before we were ever conceived, does create a pressure on each of us as we try to figure out what that purpose is in order to be able to accomplish it. But isn’t that a foolish thought? God knew who we were and what we are to do for Him from before time began; we don’t have to figure anything out; He will make sure that we accomplish that purpose for Him before we die.
Perhaps it isn’t so much whether we accomplish the purpose God has planned for us, because He will see to it that we do; perhaps the question is whether we are willing to accept our purpose as being less grandiose and world-affecting than we expect. Perhaps instead of finding the cure for cancer, our purpose is to grow a beautiful rose that causes a dear friend to smile. Are we willing to accept that and be content with it as our God-determined purpose? Ralph Waldo Emerson tells us that we should be, by reminding us that, if we can make a child smile, we are successful in accomplishing our purpose on earth. And does it not all, once again, come down to saying, “Have Thy own way, Lord?” Does it not all come down to surrendering all of ourself in total and complete dependence on God; and trusting Him, once we have done so,to use us to accomplish His purpose for our lives?
“There are two great days in every person’s life: the day he was born and the day he asked why.”
The first day is static; the second day is fluid, at least to my way of thinking.
My birthday is my birthday; it does not change. There are many days in my life that I ask why I was born. There are many days in my life on which I ask, “What is my purpose on earth?” The answer to that question occurs not on one day and then I am done with it. The answer to that question changes in accordance with my age and my experiences. The answer to that question is offered incrementally by God: When I am young, my purpose may be to color a picture which, when I give it to my mother, she smiles. When I am teaching, my purpose may be to encourage a student to do a chemistry problem when he thought he couldn’t; and he goes on to be a world-famous doctor. When I am older, my purpose might be to hold the hand of a parent at the instant he dies. The purpose of our lives changes with each day of our life; but the important thing is that when we ask God why we were born, we let Him show us day-by-day while we tell Him that we are His and offer ourselves to be used by Him as He, not we, see fit.
I don’t know when I will breathe my last, but I know that I delight in saying, “Use me, Lord, I am yours”; and watching Him do so; for to me, there is nothing more blessed than surrendering me to Him and watching Him use me as one of His instruments.
What is my specific purpose in addition to “making disciples” for God? I don’t know from one minute to the next; but I know He does, and that’s good enough from me.