DESIGNED TO FLOURISH

God showed the prophet Ezekiel a vision of languishing: a valley full of dry bones.  It was the image of a failure to thrive.  God asked “Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?” and Ezekiel answered, “You alone know.”  God did know, and he made them come alive.

I know a man named Tim who was an addict, lost his family, lost everything, found God, gave up his addiction, and got his life back again.  I know a man named Peter who was a tormented slave to sexual impulses, and God got ahold of him and that changed.  I know a woman who hated confrontation so badly she once drove on an extended road trip with her best friend for three days in silence to avoid confrontation.  Today she confronts recreationally.

God wants you to grow!  He created the very idea of growth.  The Talmud says that every blade of grass has an angel bending over it, whispering, “Grow, grow,” Paul said that in Christ the whole redeemed community “grows and builds itself up in love.”

Your flourishing is never just about you.  It is a “so that” kind of condition.  God designed you to flourish “so that” you could be part of His redemptive project in ways that you otherwise could not.  He wants you to flourish “so that” people can be encouraged, gardens can be planted, music can be written, sick people can be helped, or companies can thrive in ways they otherwise would not.  When you fail to become the person God designed, all the rest of us miss out on the gift you were made to give.

-- John Ortberg in The Me I Want to Be

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TWO ALTERNATIVES

I invite you to consider two alternatives and their consequences. One of them, to paraphrase atheist Bertrand Russell, is "You are the product of causes that have no purpose or meaning. Your origin, your growth, your hopes, fears, loves, beliefs are the outcome of accidental collections of atoms. No fire, heroism, or intensity of thought or feeling can preserve your life from beyond the grave. All the devotion, all the inspiration, all the labor of all the ages are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system. The whole temple of human achievement must inevitably be buried in the debris of a universe in ruins. That's what we're all headed for."

Or you can choose this: "You are the uniquely designed creation of a thoroughly good and unspeakably creative God. You are made in His image, with a capacity to reason, choose, and love that sets you above all other life forms. You will not only survive death, but you yourself were made to bear an eternal weight of glory you cannot now even fathom and you will one day know."

 -- John Ortberg in Faith & Doubt

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