(originally written March, 2009)
You are important. You matter. Your life has meaning and purpose, and this world would not be the same without you.
Maybe you’ve never heard this before. Maybe you have. Maybe someone said these things to you, but you couldn’t help wondering if they really meant it…and maybe they didn’t. Maybe they were just trying to cheer you up so you wouldn’t ruin their day. But what’s really important is this:
It’s true. You do matter.
You matter because you didn’t just happen. You were no accident. You may have been a surprise to your parents, but you were definitely no accident. You are an important part of a story that was written before time began1. The way you are put together, inside and out, defies explanation2. You matter, because you were always meant to matter. You were created with purpose.
This is big, exciting news. This takes away any reason for feeling inadequate because of the way you look, where you were born, the clothes you wear, the job you have, whether you can play a sport, sing in tune or stay on the honor roll. These things don’t matter, because they are not what created you. They are not what gives you purpose.
The way you live your life is not what gives you purpose.
The way you treat other people is not what gives you purpose.
Your contribution to society is not what gives you purpose.
These things are all important, but they are symptoms of your purpose. You did not create your purpose. Other people did not create your purpose. Society did not create your purpose. Your value does not depend on any of these things. You can be upset with yourself and still have value. Other people can put you down – but this does not affect your value. You can be an outcast from society and never lose value. Your value and purpose and meaning come from beyond the realm of time and space. They come from the ultimate source – the First Source. The Creator of the universe, who could drop the whole thing in his eye and never even blink – yet who knows your name and the things that make you smile, and somehow decided that you were important enough to pursue relentlessly, like a King searching for his lost child.
There is a lot of confusion over this Creator. People have done awful, terrible things in his name. People have also done wonderful, amazing things in His Name, but somehow it’s the awful things many choose to remember. The great thing is, you can learn about Him for yourself.
I grew up learning about Him. I knew all of the Sunday School answers. I went to church at least twice a week. But I never really knew Him. Not really. Mostly because I didn’t take the time to question what I knew. I hadn’t examined what I believed, put it to the test to see if it held up. Could He stand up to questions of intellect? Of science? Of history? Could He really have done the things He said He did? What if I tested everything I knew, everything I’d been told?
I challenged everything I could, and my life hasn’t been the same. I don’t look at people the same way. I don’t look at the sky, the trees, the grass the same way. I don’t look at myself the same way. Now I know where my purpose, my hope, my value come from. I challenge you to find out, too. Will you test God to see if he’s real, or will you be satisfied listening to what other people tell you about God (hint: not everyone can be right)?
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these commands.”
Jesus
1 Time had a beginning. This was postulated by Einstein in his Theory of General Relativity, and later proven by scientists such as Edwin Hubble. Everything that has a beginning has a cause. In order to cause something to begin, one must exist outside of it. Therefore, something or someone exists outside of time. Since science is the study of the natural world (i.e. the world that exists within time and space), science can point to, but cannot answer definitively questions about who or what that cause is.
2 The odds of even a single enzyme, one of the basic building blocks of life, randomly forming by accident into a mechanism useful for developing living organisms has been calculated at 1 X 10 40,000. This is greater than the estimated number of atoms in the known universe.