God has a plan for each of us.
I’ve been watching my boys a little this weekend – noting as usual their very different personalities despite their very similar (and in two cases identical) looks. I’m always curious what they each will become. Like the child who makes a dramatic full body response to every statement he makes or question he asks. “Whaaaat???? We don’t have schooooolll today? That’s sooo craaaazy!” Or the child who wants to know everyone’s business. “Hi! What’s your name? How old are you? Why do you have those wrinkles right there above your nose?” Or the child who can be so quiet and then drop a bomb like “Mom, do you think time travel is real?” launching right into his own understanding of time and space and the good and bad of it all.
What they will become is a mystery for sure. But what I do know is that God made them for something.
And God made you and me for something.
Something necessary, something incredible, something only we can do.
As we enter into the last weeks of the year, the desire to make goals and find our purpose is already seeping in. Social media is inundating all of us with books and strategies and courses for personal improvement in 2021.
But maybe all we really need is a little trust. Trust that God has a plan for us and through prayer and discernment and a whole lot of patience, it may all become clear.
I love this prayer by St John Henry Newman. It’s such a wonderful prayer for trust.
“God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments. Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about.“
May God grace you with the knowledge that you have purpose today and everyday.
