Saturday, August 28, 2010

There's More to Life Than Cherry Garcia

Today is Saturday. I've been to four yard sales, bought a pillow and three hand towels at the mall and eaten a mini-sized Cherry Garcia. All the exciting stuff! That's the way most days are, right? Hours of monotony that keep repeating themselves so all the days start to run together. After a while, it all just begins to seem ridiculous, doesn't it?

But the other thing I did on this monotonous Saturday was watch Prince Caspian again. I love the way that story reminds us about destiny, about our particular individual purpose.

But what does destiny have to do with our world? Between work and school and house cleaning and grocery shopping, destiny sounds like something only found in fairy tales.

Maybe it doesn't exist.

Or maybe it all comes down to the fact that we don't pay attention. Maybe the Lord's trying to guide us down the right paths to our destiny every second of every day, and we're just too focused on the monotony to notice.

It doesn't mean we're going to end up fighting to save the world or staking our place in the history books. Destiny doesn't often add up to headline news. Life is still life, and we're responsible to lead it. But the real significance of destiny is the all-important fact that it's designed by God. God created us and placed us here for a very specific purpose, and if we spend our lives fulfilling that purpose by being obedient to Him, life gains added dimension no matter how many dishes you wash or customer complaints you field.

I believe that when He creates each one of us, He crafts us in such a way that we will only be truly fulfilled by living out His plan for our lives. Sure, we can find substitutes that will make us relatively content, but there will be something missing. Somewhere, deep down inside, we'll know we were made for more than this.

So I suppose it's up to us to see past the boredom and monotony of the never-finished laundry, the daily carpools, reoccurring workplace dramas, and the dust that lands where dust was just removed. Because somewhere out there is our own personal destiny, our purpose for being sent here in the first place. We may not know all of it at once - we'll likely only see it in bits and pieces - but all of the particulars are up to Him.

Don't go out there seeking to find your destiny; seek to find Him and all the rest will fall into place. If we keep our eyes focused on our Creator, He'll guide our feet, one step at a time, onto the path we were meant to travel.

"For You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be" Psalm 139:13-16

3 comments:

Ethan M. said...

Interesting to consider that God is shaping our destiny while we do homework...

Tammie said...

Wait, there's more to life than Cherry Garcia!?! Since when!?!

I love the statement:

"if we spend our lives fulfilling that purpose by being obedient to Him, life gains added dimension no matter how many dishes you wash or customer complaints you field."

How true this is!!

Jennifer Valent said...

Ethan, you never know what you'll end up doing with that knowledge!

Tammie, I know... sometimes it seems like ice cream is the only way out! :) Thanks for reading!