For This Place

Yesterday, I showed through the words of Jeremiah how God is willing to unravel Creation if you're not satisfied with it, if you rebel against it.  Because He created this place for you.  And if you don't like it here, none of this beauty and grace and majesty matter to Him.

On the other side of this coin is this equal truth: As much as He created this place for you, He also created you for this place.

He created you with the physical body to live this close to the sun and not burn up, this far away and not freeze.  You have eyes that can tolerate the range of darkness and light on this earth, ears that respond to a siren of warning or the warning song of the swallow.  Your tongue can not only taste, but appreciate everything from caviar to cupcakes.  Your nose knows whether that's rancid garbage or an enchanting rose.

God created this beautiful, wonderful, mysterious place just for you.  And then He formed the mysterious you to put in it.  Not just to put in this place but to be in this place, perfectly designed for all the nuances of Here.

Have you ever thought about it?

Think a little deeper.

He also created you with the personality, the gifts, and the abilities to do something.  Not just something, but something here.  He made you to fill this space in the universe that He left open just for you, this you-shaped hole in all of creation that He formed around His idea of you and then created you precisely to fill.  By shape and form and substance, you fit right in this place He has for you.  If you don't wake up every day and realize that, then maybe you're in the wrong place.  Just sayin'.

Sometimes, I look around at people who don't seem to belong here.  They stick out like sore thumbs.  They don't have the right image, the right status, the right whatever to fit my definition of this place.  Often, I find the same thing in the mirror.  I mean, where do I fit?  Where do any of us fit?  It's a question I think we spend much of our lives asking, and most of our energies trying to answer.

But then I look at what those very same people are doing here, and I get it.  They're here because this is their place.  They were created for this, even if my eyes don't always see the them-shaped holes they are filling.  Sometimes, you have to look and I mean really look at people to understand their place in this mess.  When you figure out what it is they are doing here...it's beautiful.  It's so awesome to see the way God shaped this place around them and formed them to do something good in this place.  So precisely.  So perfectly.  You start to understand how it all comes together.

And at least for me, I start to hope that others can look at my life and see the same.  I don't always fit in; I know that.  I don't always look like I belong.  I stick out like a sore thumb and probably don't meet a lot of expectations people have about a person in this place.  But I hope for anyone paying attention, for anyone looking, for anyone watching, they can catch a glimpse of what I'm doing here and that somehow this all makes sense.  I hope that someone else can see what I already sense - that I was made for this place.  Perfectly, precisely, wonderfully made to fill an Aidan-shaped hole in the universe.  Right here.

We were made for this place that was made for us.  We were formed to fill the void in the form of who we would be when God created Creation with our creation in mind.  It's incredible.  It's so cool.

Do you feel like you were made for this place?  If not, is it time to consider somewhere new?