Let’s talk today about the source of our significance. The norm is to find significance in our job title, the amount of money in our bank account, our physical appearance, the number of important people we know, the car we drive, or our family ties. All these can be swept away in an instant. Anyone who has experienced a natural disaster can witness to that. All of them can be here today and gone tomorrow without a way of replacement. I needed something concrete, unchanging, constant and reliable to which I could look for my significance.
Oh, I tried lots of ways to find significance, like becoming part of the in-crowd in high school—didn’t happen. Like by competing in gymnastics…eh, mediocre results. Like competing by grade point average…eh nothing to shake anyone’s world. Like dating and marrying a young man with a Mustang GT, white vinyl top and Hawaiian blue paint…we’ve talked about how that turned out. Like going back to college after age 30 to get the degrees and letters after my name…helped in the ability to support myself, and I’m grateful to have completed all that I did, and they did raise my personal significance to a point. I am all about the importance of getting a good education. All these things are transitory. I could lose the significance they generate in a heartbeat.
I wanted more. I wanted security in my significance. I wanted to know that whatever I found that made the difference was permanent. The answer I found was counter intuitive. I needed to empty my expectations based on myself, dump all the rusting junk, and quit trying to base my significance on fluff n stuff. The more I learned about God in relation to me, the more I saw of His perfect justice, incomparable grace, unstoppable strength, inexhaustible wisdom, and unchanging moral attributes, the more I realized He was the constancy I desired for placing my significance. The process ends in becoming humble before God.
So I cleaned out all the fluff n stuff and left the abode vacant so that the Holy Spirit could move in and take over. Andrew Murray states it far better in his book, Humility, New York: Anson D. F. Randolph & Co. 1895. “True humility comes when, in the light of God, we have seen ourselves to be nothing, have consented to part with and cast away self, to let God be all.”
Do not let me mislead you to think that this is a 3-step fix for all that is wrong in life. Far from that, it is a continual process of fighting pride, and willingness to accept what God provides. I could go on for a very long time on how I want to direct God in my prayers instead of molding my own desires to His will, but that has to be the topic of another episode, as it is out of the scope for this one. The point here is that God has become the bastion and source of my significance, because I am made in His image for His purpose to His glory, and because He is always with me in that.
“But Moses said to the LORD, ‘Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.’ Then the LORD said to him, ‘Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.’” (Exodus 4:10-12 ESV)
Significance
I am small,
God of all.
How is it that you call me?
I don’t know
The way to go.
Why is it that you show me?
I’m unworthy,
God of mercy.
Why would you want to save me?
I’m so tiny;
You’re so mighty.
Why do you guard me nightly?
I have nothing.
You are I Am.
How is it that you love me?
Because You are
God of Mercy,
The Great I Am, and
Mighty God of all.
Gracious Father, maker of all that is and ever will be. There is no one like you. You have made me in your image, gifted me for your purposes, raised me for your testimony, educated me to fulfill your challenge, and saved me for your glory to live for your honor. You are mighty and I am small, yet, you have provided a way for me to wear the robes of your righteousness–unspeakable love and grace. I praise you in the name of Jesus, who humbled himself to your will, even death on a cross that I may live to your glory. I pray according to your good and perfect will. Amen.