Worth Priceless
Monday, March 15 at 9:38 a.m.
As a child when things were especially hard, I would ask myself why I was placed here on this Earth. But I wasn't really asking myself that question - I was asking God. Not what His will for me was... No, I wasn't thinking that far ahead. I wanted to know why I of all people had to be placed in this body. He could just as easily have created someone else: someone who looked like me, but would have been a different person. Then I would never have existed. I would never have had to feel the pain that life had brought my way at that particular moment.

I realised this morning that I haven't asked myself - or God - that question in quite a while. I still don't know why He choose the "me" that I am to be here. I'm still not entirely sure what His will for my life is either. But I'm not so worried anymore.

When I did ask that question as a child, I think there was always a little fist raised at heaven as well; if not literally, then surely in my heart. I was looking for answers to whatever situation I had found myself in, and it seemed to me at the time that God was unduly punishing me. "Why me?" is the question I was throwing at His feet - "This place I'm in, You'd have to be evil, or at least mean, to put me here." But I was a little fool then.

Thankfully, I'm not so little anymore. I think we, or at least I, often forget how awesome a thing life is. I look hard at the few things that are wrong and miss everything that is right and beautiful and good. I forget that God is Love, creative by nature. He didn't place me here because He's malicious; He did it because He saw in me - before I was even a twinkle in someone's eye - everything I could be.

If I can forget that about myself, it goes without saying that I forget that about others. I might look at a friend or a brother or a parent or even a stranger on the street and see only their faults: everything that is wrong, but not the greater part that is right. I fail to realise that they are all His children, created in His image. In each and everyone of them is that Divine spark - a small part of their temporal selves that has been touched by the Eternal. A small piece of the Infinite.

And because it's there, no person is worthless. We just haven't as yet learned what is truly of value.

If I Stand
Rich Mullins and Steve Cudworth

Psalm 125:2, Psalm 126:1-6, Psalm 137:1-6
Isaiah 2:17-22, Isaiah 49:15-16, Hosea 6:3
Ephesians 2:8-10, James 1:13-17

There's more that rises in the morning than the sun
And more that shines in the night than just the moon
It's more than just this fire here that keeps me warm
In a shelter that is larger than this room

And there's a loyalty that's deeper than mere sentiments
And a music higher than the songs that I can sing
The stuff of Earth competes for the allegiance
I owe only to the Giver of all good things

So if I stand let me stand on the promise
That you will pull me through
And if I can't, let me fall on the grace
That first brought me to You
And if I sing let me sing for the joy
That has born in me these songs
And if I weep let it be as a man
Who is longing for his home

There's more that dances on the prairies than the wind
More that pulses in the ocean than the tide
There's a love that is fiercer than the love between friends
More gentle than a mother's when her baby's at her side

And there's a loyalty that's deeper than mere sentiments
And a music higher than the songs that I can sing
The stuff of Earth competes for the allegence
I owe only to the Giver of all good things

So if I stand let me stand on the promise
That you will pull me through
And if I can't let me fall on the grace
That first brought me to You
And if I sing let me sing for the joy
That has born in me these songs
And if I weep let it be as a man
Who is longing for his home

And if I weep let it be as a man
Who is longing for his home

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