Have you ever felt lost in the sea of humanity on planet Earth? The world population stands at more than 7.8 billion people, and it is easy to feel insignificant with no value or purpose in such a large crowd.

But you are unique—just like everyone else! While you are one out of 7.8 billion, the odds of you being here—of even existing— are phenomenal! What I mean by that is that the possibility of you existing—not just a random human—is truly amazing. In spite of that, one of the saddest realities of Western cultures is the number of suicides committed. Almost 1 million people around the

world die by suicide each year. A big factor in suicidal depression is the feeling of worthlessness— thoughts like: “I don’t matter to others;” “no one would miss me;” or, “I am just one worthless speck in a sea of humanity.”

God doesn’t see you that way. In Isaiah 44:2, a very personal and intimate statement is recorded for us from God himself. God said that He formed and made Israel. He made the same statement to the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:5). Many read verses such as this and think that God only specifically formed a few individuals. But what if God took an interest in the forming of each one of us?

To get to the heart of what I am talking about, let’s first talk about the probability of your parents meeting. If your parents met one new person of the

opposite sex every day from age 15 to 40, they would meet about 10,000 people. If we confine the pool of possible people they could meet to 1/10th of the world’s population 20 years ago that would give us a number of 400 million (1/10th of 4 billion = 400 million). Half of those people will be of the opposite sex. So, let’s say the probability of your parents meeting, ever, is 10,000 divided into 200 million, or one in 20,000. To add to this, a fertile woman has about 100,000 viable eggs on average. Your dad would have produced about 4 trillion sperm over the course of your mother’s reproductive lifetime. So the probability of that one sperm with half your name on it fertilizing that one egg with the other half of your name on it is one in 400 quadrillion!

The possibility of each of us existing should give us pause to consider the amazing gift of life we have been given. We can’t really comprehend 400 quadrillion, and scientists don’t really understand the process of how that egg cell and sperm cell combine to make another person (Ecclesiastes 11:5).

While we can ponder the possibility of one particular thing happening, God has made everything we know to exist in the first place! Every good gift comes from God (James 1:17). While it can be easy to focus on the bad things that happen in

our lives, we should be careful not to lose sight of the good things God does for us—and His plans that give us hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).

Our obedience to God is paramount if we want to become like Him—if we want to have eternal life. That is His desire—that is why He created us. The question for us is this: Do we see His purpose for us and desire the same thing as God? I encourage you to stop and consider that God not only created the world and universe, but He shaped you, and He has a purpose for you.

What are the odds?