Sunday November 5, 2006 | Annie Perdue-Olson
For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Meaning and purpose in life. It is a longing and yearning that we all have. We want to make a difference and leave a mark in this world. The problem is that we don’t believe we are beautiful. To experience meaning in this life requires believing that God has wonderfully and beautifully made us. As we recognize our beauty we are then able to share this beauty with others.
Meaning and purpose in life. It is a longing and yearning that we all have. We want to make a difference and leave a mark in this world. The problem is that we don’t believe we are beautiful. To experience meaning in this life requires believing that God has wonderfully and beautifully made us. As we recognize our beauty we are then able to share this beauty with others.
God has given every one of us unique gifts and abilities. We are called to be stewards of these gifts by sharing them with others. “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If you speak, you should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If you serve, you should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen” 1 Peter 4:10-11. Each of our gifts is designed to benefit others as well as ourselves. As believers, we are responsible for fulfilling the purpose of our gifts by using them to build up the whole body of Christ.
The lies of modern day culture tell us that fulfillment is found in our own personal “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. Christians are called to define their personal fulfillment differently from the world’s criteria. The world’s standards tell us that we are not good enough or that we must always be striving for more achievement in order to find the beautiful life. In order to live the beautiful life that God has designed us for, we have to start believing that God has a role for each of us to play regardless of how we feel we measure up to the world’s expectations.
Releasing God’s beauty requires us to become willing to be stretched beyond what we believe we are able to do alone. This does not mean adding more fragmented activities but learning to invest more deeply in specific areas of our lives that God is calling us to. As we are stretched into growth we learn to combine our circles of demands, and even to alter some of our circles of commitment. We may be called out of comfortable, time consuming activities and relationships into new opportunities that stretch us beyond ourselves and teach us to trust God for direction.
As we begin to change how we do life into a more integrated lifestyle we will begin to make more of a difference in the lives of those we are in relationship with. Also, we may be required to change our circles in order to live out a more meaningful life. As we continue down the path of discovering God’s plan for beauty in our lives it is important to take one circle at a time and pray about how God is calling us to be involved in that circle.