Significantly Confident

The path of faith builds off the foundation that God actually cares about us and pays attention to what happens in our lives. Now this can be hard to grasp – why would a God who is great and self-sufficient give a rip about me? Doesn’t he have something better to do with his time and energy? Maybe if he put his energy elsewhere there wouldn’t be so many problems in the world today!

Since everything in the world seems to follow the principle of maximizing the benefit obtained from the energy and effort expended (the whole cost benefit thing), what scenario could lead to the God of (at least) the universe paying attention to impotent peons? Oddly, the God who doesn’t need anything decided he wanted us to do something for him. We’re not exactly efficient nor are we great at following instructions so we’re puzzled about why he would choose us. There had to be a better way to get things done.

The way of faith is not big on explaining “why.”  It does a lot better with telling us “what” but in this case we will see that it simply tells us “that” he’s got something we need to be doing.

Image by Joe Dsilva via Flickr

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Jesus Christ to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”   Ephesians 2

For now we will skate past “created in Jesus Christ to do . . .” simply noting that there was an intentional action by God to bring us into being. Again, these words aren’t big on “how” but they do tell us “what.” He intentionally created us with a definite purpose in mind. He has something he wants us to do and he has thought about it ahead of time, it’s not some random add-on. We notice that this purpose applies to all the people he created in Jesus Christ – there’s no exceptions given, no outsider list, it reads that if you are one of those people created in Jesus Christ, then you have a purpose to accomplish in life.

So now we can add significance to confidence.

We can be confident that God is at work as an artisan in our lives –  we matter to him and are objects he considers worthwhile and even valuable. He’s investing in us.

Now add the fact that (see it clearly yet or not) we have a purpose in life, something worthwhile to accomplish, something required from us, something that God is counting on us to do. Perhaps we haven’t connected with that purpose yet but we are by nature curious and so bound to explore it. In fact, fulfillment in life will escape us until we can connect with our purpose. We might do well in life, amassing great accomplishments and stuff, but it remains empty and hollow until we can connect to our purpose. Equally we might sit fuming and hurting over unfair things done to us, incapacitated by our resentment and bitterness. Our lives amount to nothing until we connect with our purpose. The most common case is we go through life doing what comes to us with no intentional actions, just drifting with the flow until we reach our expiration date. Life becomes a series of random events followed by an uncertain end; not so much amazing as mundane and meaningless.

But here’s a better way; the way of faith. It stirs us to get a grip on ourselves, to look beyond our circumstances, rising above our past experiences to connect with our purpose. We begin to see that we are intended to invest our lives in something bigger than ourselves. Our purpose is the purpose that God wants us to fulfill. It’s not about becoming a mean-spirited controller of others or the pushy, demanding sort who thinks life is all about “me.” It is about discovering that we are people of destiny with a role to play in what God is doing. God has chosen to work through us, ergo the work we are chosen to do is his work. Welcome to the end of “self” and the beginning of true significance.

If God has made me like I am, I wonder what he could have for me to do?

Related articles of interest:

• Tozer, The Sovereignty of God (basictheology.wordpress.com)
• Jesus Christ, to me (ssimplyme.wordpress.com)
• God Works Within Us (pttyann2.wordpress.com)
• Craftsmanship is in the Eye of the Beholder (citesimon.com)