Beloved of God

I was always told I have a purpose in life. The preacher said it when I was a kid. And I believed him. The youth leader sold the same message in a different package. It was the campus pastor’s primary message:

God has a plan for you. You are created for a specific reason to do a specific thing at a specific place and a specific time.

I kept pondering my purpose was in life. I suffered a fair amount of anxiety that I would surely be missing something because what I liked to do didn’t really seem to make much difference in the world. I remember one night I was reading Jeremiah. I approached the twenty-ninth chapter. The eleventh verse is well-known: 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” 

I read it and re-read it. One letter jumped off the page. I hadn’t noticed it before. It was the letter “s”. “Plans” not “plan”. More than one. 

Maybe the preachers were wrong. Maybe life is full of good options as far and plans and purposes go and maybe we have the responsibility of choosing the best door to open. It seemed like a lot of maybes and I still suffered a fair amount of anxiety that I would surely be missing something because what I liked to do didn’t really seem to make much difference in the world. 

Solomon writes of our relationship with God: 

I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. –Song of Solomon 6:3 

Jesus shares our primary task: 

Love God. –Matthew 22:37 

Now the whole purpose or purposes thing is making sense. The preachers and pastors were right. We do have a purpose: To be loved by God and to love God. We are God’s beloved and He invites us to love Him now and forever. What we do, what we have, and what people think about us have nothing to do with our primary purpose. People and things and feelings will all come and go. God remains the same. And as we love God and are loved by God something amazing happens: 

Then the Lord gave me this message: “O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand.” -Jeremiah 18:5-6 

God forms us. God shapes us. God makes us beautiful and useful. He reveals His plans and makes His additional purposes known. He makes us more like Him who gave Himself for us. We live most abundantly when we give whatever we can give: a laugh, a shake of the hand, a friendly smile, a hug, words of encouragement, part of our life, and all of our life. 

Being loved by God, loving God, and letting God form us to be more like Him. Sounds like a pretty good plan to me. 

The best it yet to come… 

Craig