Just So, a.k.a. Things God Loves About Me

Designers will tell you that nothing about their work is arbitrary. Every curve in the car’s body, every stitch in the cloth, every pixel of color, every square, circle, trapezium and squiggly – they are all there exactly as the designer wanted. Just-so. While directing plays, I realized that the concept applies there too – all the little quirky stuff, all the little touches that were apparently arbitrary – well, the truth is that the play would not have been the same without those touches. In some weird inexplicable way, all the arbitrariness falls into its rightful place.

And so, if the Bible tells me that as God’s creation, I am made exactly like that – unique, but every intricate detail about me being planned – well, I would tend to believe it. It’s the little things that make up the big picture for God, I can tell you that! He is kicked by my quirks, my eccentricities, my hair that has never seen a Good Hair Day, my long eyelashes, my snafu and soul-patch, my enormous Adam’s Apple, my big feet, my uninterrupted alimentary canal, my lack of a rear-end, my skeletal frame, my Hardly-Davidson, my poor dress sense, my wackiness, my PJ’s, my inability to remember birthdays, my inability to stop talking, my insistence on finding new ways to fill up my Embarrassing Moments to-do list, my highs, my lows, my inability to ever get in-between the highs and lows, my good poetry, my bad poetry, my inability to get off my behind and start practising the guitar, my inability to see a good opportunity when it comes, my desperate attempts to latch on to bad opportunities, and of course my love of Yanni’s music. Yeah. He does love me as I am. Why wouldn’t He? – He made me like that, and I’m a masterpiece, so obviously these aren’t flaws. You see?

I am not an accident, the Good Book say. I am what I am because there is a God!

I find that cool because there’s nothing then about me that I will not be able to accept. Not my physical appearance, not my parents, not my background, not my personality, and not even the darn situation I am in now that I keep cribbing about. I guess I’ll fight it now, and cuss around until someone throws me off a building or thwacks me across the head, but there’s always the Good Ole Happy Ending, where we always end with that famous Retrospect Refrain: there is a God!!

The God Core

I’ve begun reading Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life, finally. And I would strongly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read it as yet. It’s a powerfully written study on how to go about both finding and fulfilling God’s calling, plan and purpose for your life.

Warren’s first statement is that our purpose (“What are we here on earth for?”) is not “found within ourselves”, contrary to the assertions of popular literature. The truth is that we exist for God’s purposes, and not vice versa. Warren says that “many people try to use God for their own self-actualization, but that is a reversal of nature and is doomed to failure.”

Am I using God to fulfil myself? Am I force-fitting my “calling” to my dreams? Am I deciding my course of action a priori, and then finding scripture to justify my stance?

Searching myself, I find that it is probably true – I may have gospelized my dream of being in the Entertainment Industry by determining that it would be Christian entertainment. Hm. Maybe God did put that dream in my heart in the first place. But the realization leaves me with the imperative to pray hard about it, that God should search my heart, my motives, and reveal to me if my intentions were wrong, and deviant from His will.

The problem with self-help books is well-pointed out. They can in fact lead to success, if we put our mind to it, and if we are fortunate enough. BUT…

“…being successful and fulfilling your life's purpose are not at all the same
issue! You could reach all your personal goals, becoming a raving success by the
world's standard, and still miss the purposes for which God created you…”

The picture in my head that put things in perspective was this:

• The substandard way of thinking would be to treat the different parts of our lives as compartments, and one compartment is faith – it does not connect with the other aspects of our lives, and we can easily separate them in terms of time, company, activities, mindsets, lifestyles… you know what I’m talking about.

• Slightly better is the thinking that we have all aspects of our lives in place, in fixed positions, and we use God as a kind of Join-the-Dots mechanism, to make sure that our faith connects everything. Better, but still not there.

• And then there’s the actual design of God – where we let God be the centre of our lives, and everything spokes out from there, like a wagon-wheel – they cannot exist without God. It all ties in with the seek-ye-first-the-kingdom-of-God teaching… all things WILL be added to us!

God should be the center, the author AND PERFECTER of our purpose. Never my will, always His. Never my successes alone, always His.

Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts.

Made for each other!

I was reading Betty Miller's daily devotional at Bible.com's online Bible site today, and she had made a very straightforward bold assertion:

"God created us, first of all, to need Him and then, to need each other."

There's something remarkable about this statement. Common social thinking says that "Man is a social animal" and "No man is an island", and it is true - but even more relevant to us as Christians.

I have always contended that one of the principal differences between Christianity and other faiths is that ours is intrinsically based on community. It is not enough for me to be reading my Bible, praying on my own, "working out my own salvation", building up myself in spiritual maturity...

For instance, why do we go to church at all? Does it serve the same purpose as going to a mosque or a temple - in the sense of fulfiling some commitment to God or performing a weekly rite or paying your tithe? Is it to simply to hear the sermon or enjoy the praise and worship? I don't think so. I think it is about coming together as people of God. Getting to know each other. Sharing in a common spirit. Building relationships. That's why we distinguish between personal worship and corporate worship in the first place.

There's a reason why the Bible says (the reference eludes me now) that

"one can put a thousand to flight, but two can take on ten thousand."

THAT is the power of community! Our strength multiplies enormously when we stand together, work together, support each other! What I cannot do on my own is easily possible when I have with me another child of God.

Needing each other involves both giving and receiving. We all know that it is better to give than to receive. It is one of the axioms of our faith. The rest of the world tends to hinge on receiving, receiving, receiving - everyone out for himself, survival of the fittest and all that jazz. Put anyone at a point of decision, and his first thoughts are likely to be: "What am I going to get out of this?" Christians too may fall into that trap - going to Church to receive a good sermon, to enjoy the terrific music. The truth is that this undermines the real value of Church - when we are meant to give into each others' lives! When I participate in praise and worship, am I bringing a spirit and passion for God that will bless those around me? What about those who are coming to Church for the first time - do I have a heart that can bless them, can I meet with them after the service and help them feel at home? What about those who come to Church with troubles on their mind - can I sense their burden, speak to them, win their trust, help them out?

But of course, there's the other side to this. Christians often get so taken in by this whole giving thing that they forget to receive. Serious problem here. If a person's attitude to anyone he sees is "What can I give to him?", there would never be any receiving, and no real way of learning from others or growing with their help. What does this indicate? - Over-confidence? Pride? May not be that strong, but there would seriously be something missing.

Youth camp last year taught me that three forms of relationships are essential to everyone: to have a Paul (a mentor, from whom you can receive teaching, guidance and correction), a Barnabas (a peer with whom you can connect and share) and a Timothy (a disciple, someone who looks up to you, to whom you can yourself be a mentor). And, of course, we need God to be the center of all of this.

We need these relationships, we need these people, we need God. They fill up places in us that are just emptiness when we try to stand on our own.