A key hindrance to our worship of God is our misunderstanding about the purpose of our creation. If all things were created for God’s pleasure and purpose, I think we need a mindset change regarding our lives and all their components.
We tend to live our lives like we are the owners of ourselves when the truth is that we are not ours…..and the sooner we acknowledge this truth, the better for us. We have a Creator who had a purpose for our existence before He formed our physical bodies containing our spirits (the real us) in our mothers’ wombs.
I just saw an image someone put out that rejects the concept of our being owned, saying we’re not pieces of furniture. Yet we might as well be pieces of furniture because we were formed just like furniture is howbeit we are formed from dust (to which we all return when we die) rather than from wood. For the Christian who has embraced the price paid by Jesus, there can be no question that we are owned by Jesus –
“For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (1 Corinthians 6:20, KJV)
Our image of God for the most part is of that of a Being who exists to make us happy by giving us everything we want. On the contrary, God is the Almighty God, the I AM, who is sovereign and rules over the universe (not just Earth) and who has His plans and purposes. He is not a scatterbrain who just makes things for the fun of it. He is a purposeful Creator.
I look at the story of Hannah and Samuel’s birth and it is interesting to see that although Samuel came as an answer to prayer, God had His purpose for Samuel. He has a purpose for every life and by extension, for everything in every life – our relationships, our marriages, our finances, our jobs…..everything. This also explains to me the issue of asking amiss:“…when you ask, you do not receive because the reason you ask is wrong. You want things so you can use them for your own pleasures.” (James 4:3, NCV)
and another translation puts it this way: “Yet even when you do pray, your prayers are not answered, because you pray just for selfish reasons.” (CEV)
While we have legitimate needs because we have a physical body and live in a material world, we would save ourselves a lot of stress if we keep reminding ourselves that everything we possess – internal (like abilities) and external – belong to God and are to be at placed at His disposal for His use.
Let’s use for instance the concept of marriage. God instituted marriage and He did so for His own reasons. He felt that the man, Adam, would fare better with a helper and companion, the woman, Eve. He told the both of them to multiply, dominate and subdue the Earth. He basically commissioned them as partners to expand His kingdom on Earth – His spheres of influence and dominion. So while we pray for spouses for our own selfish but legitimate reasons, we should have at the back of our mind that our union as spouses is to partner for God’s purposes, not ours. Not to have children, send them to the best schools and use them (and material possessions) as trophies of our ‘success’ on Earth.
I used the example of marriage because it is one area that we seem to see as far removed from God’s pleasure and purpose.
So in our daily experiences and decision-making processes, let’s always ask ourselves the question: “Whose am I?” “Who owns this (child, money, property….whatever it might be)?” “What would the Owner (God) have me do with it?”
Because after all said and done, we are here for His pleasure and His purpose.