Are You an Accident?

“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank You for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous – how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dak of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in Your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” (Psalm 139:13-16 NLT)

If you are alive, you have a purpose! God doesn’t make mistakes and He doesn’t create junk. Every person has been uniquely designed by God and bears the image of their Creator. God has planted eternity in the hearts of every person. Everyone will live forever, someplace.

When I was in Seminary, I took a course entitled “Ministry to the Mentally Ill.”Friends thought I took the class to gain insight into why I was the way I was, but it was an eye opener. As part of the requirements, we would go to a State Facility one day a week, mostly to observe and interact with patients, but they had areas of the hospital where there were people, young and old, who had more than mental issues.

That experience comes to mind as I readily admit that I don’t have answers to why some people are born grossly deformed in body and mind. One day we’ll understand perfectly, but in the meantime, we have the same option as everyone else on the planet – we either tuck that away in our “Ask the Lord about this when I get to heaven,” or we let it push us away from the Lord.

There are circumstances with which every person must deal during their lives. Tragedy, violence, mistreatment, hardships, many things we’d never choose for ourselves, but which God can enable us to use to make us better, not bitter.

Ultimately, we get to decide what we’ll do with the proverbial “cards” we’ve been dealt. I have chosen in my life to trust God with my outcomes. Like many, if not most, there are things I’ve done and experiences I’ve had that I’d like to have some “do-overs,” but that’s not how life works. I have chosen to believe the Bible is God’s Word, thus true and applicable to every avenue of my life.

The only way that I can make sense of my life is to trust that God has engineered circumstances to enable me to maximize my potential for His glory and honor. As a Jesus follower I don’t belong to myself. I’ve been purchased by the blood of my Savior, so I’m no longer my own, but property of my beloved Savior. I’ve experienced negative things in my life, but because my life has purpose, those experiences have purpose, and the Lord has used them to shape and mold me into the person He desires me to become as I grow into greater conformity to His likeness.

Very likely you have experienced heartbreaking, life-altering, soul-crushing things in your life that have caused you to wonder if God has forgotten about you, or worse, never realized you’d been born. On the authority of God’s Word, I assure you that is not the case. He knew you before the foundations of the world were ever laid.

Augustine wrote: “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” In God’s mind He loves you as if you’re His only child. The longer I live and the closer the Lord becomes to me, the richer I see my life for having experienced the painful and tragic things I’ve endured. Each one has enabled me to see Him more clearly and desire Him more fully.

I get that there are lots of things we don’t see clearly now, but one day, when our eyes and minds are finally fully opened and as we walk faithfully with Jesus, we’ll see we were each one purposely and intentionally designed to become the person we are. And all that it took for us to get there was no accident.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊