You are unique - And God loves that uniqueness!
Last week we talked about how God is deeply interested in YOU personally. In my previous column, I briefly recounted that when I first learned about God's personal interest in me, it completely changed my outlook on life. According to the Bible, you and I have great personal value to God! We are not worthless specks of nothingness headed for extinction. I have been humbled and fortunate for God to demonstrate that personal interest in my life many times through answered prayer, through protection, through many things happening that I know I couldn't have made happen. I'm sure you have similar stories of your own.
Added up and brought to mind, this direct interest of my Creator gives me a strong sense of security and value on a daily basis. It gives me a sense of Destiny and purpose. When I think, pray and live my life out day by day, I know it is for a reason. And I gladly surrender my life to that purpose, because I know with surety that I have a providential guide directing where my life goes next.
How about you? Can you sense, even feel, that divine confidence?
Some might say: "How can an Almighty God know anything about me? What value would God find in a single person?" While created in His image, God allows for great variety. Today, nearly seven billion people live on planet earth. Despite these vast numbers, science confirms that each person is different and unique. No two people are or will be exactly alike. Right down to our physical fingerprints and how each of us thinks, we are all utterly and uniquely different.
God loves this variety. Never mind where you were born. Never mind what your status is presently in life. He loves your potential of what you can become, both in this life and in the life to come. He loves the fact that you have free will and can come to love Him even in the way that He loves you!
Again, one might wonder, "How can God respect my individuality when there are billions of people?" Well, according to the Bible, God knows the name of every star (Psalm 147:4). Through research conducted through the Hubble telescope, scientists estimate that there are about 200 billion stars in the Milky Way alone. When you stop and think that there are at least an estimated 100 billion additional galaxies, that means God has a pretty big database of star names.
But that's not a problem for God. We worship a Creator God of limitless power! God loved you and me enough that He gave His only Son as an eternal sacrifice to unite us together (John 3:16). God made each of us different, even paying careful attention to when we were growing in our mother's womb! Read it for yourself in the 139th Psalm. The writer of this Psalm was inspired to record: "Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed" (Psalm 139:16). Further, the Bible states emphatically here that you and I are "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14).
As we love our children who are different from one another, God loves each one of His with the same unique attention.
What makes you unique? Everything! As I mentioned last week, God has every hair on our hair numbered. As a God of limitless power, He is intimately aware of each and every attribute of ours.
You and I come to God as children of different races and nationalities. You and I have different temperaments. You and I have our own distinctive life experiences, gifts and talents.
Knowing all of that, I invite you to consider this important fact: when you are clear about what makes you a unique individual, you can then better understand what it is that you can give to others. You can know your unique place in the world and the purpose that God has for you.
If you want to know more about your uniqueness and why that is important to God Himself, I'd like to offer our Bible study guide Transforming Your Life for you to read. This short guide will provide you with more information about how you can align your uniqueness with God and begin to develop a trusting relationship directly with Him. And after you've read it, I'd like to know what you think. Perhaps you can share some of your stories with me.
Next time, I plan to continue our weekly journey about how we can make a personal decision about what to do now with what we have been given. That involves trust. Believe me, this trip only gets better. I hope see you again next week – in the meantime, download or request the free literature, Transforming Your Life and see what God thinks of your uniqueness!
