Have you ever felt purposeless? Have you ever wondered why you exist or what God put you here to do?
I turned 46 recently and found myself wondering those very things.
This holiday season was the loneliness in recent memory. I say that not for pity. You do not need to be single to be lonely.
You can be lonely in a marriage.
You can be lonely with 5 kids.
You can be lonely when you are surrounded by people.
But when you don’t have a family to raise, or your children are grown; when you can’t see the impact you’ve made anywhere, or when your life seems small and you feel invisible, you can start to wonder why you even exist at all. It is a question old as time.
When I took these questions to God on the anniversary of my birth, I remembered reading somewhere earlier in the year about how the most distant places – those humans have not yet seen and places where footsteps are yet to cross: the isolated prairies, the lonely valleys, the highest peaks of the mountain tops; the depths of the sea unexplored by man – exist purely for His good pleasure.
Their days go unnoticed by man.
Their impact no one ponders.
Their existence is unseen by human eyes.
And yet they exist because it delights Him. They exist simply for the pleasure of the Artist who created them.
Is there anything more profoundly tender than existing purely for the sake of His delight? Is there any thought more freeing or happy?
What if I told you there are no tasks you could do to make yourself more valuable?
There was no duty to complete in order to earn His favor?
There was no worry about leaving something unfinished or undone?
What if I told you, you exist simply for God’s good pleasure?
What if your existence is the thing that gives Him joy?
What if there is nothing you can do to earn His love and nothing you can do to destroy it?
What if I told you His love always was, always is, and always will be?
What an extraordinary, wonderful thought!
“The Lord your God is with you. He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing.” – Zephaniah 3:17