A couple of summers ago, when Max was five, he decided to experiment with a sharp rock and a shiny black bumper on a brand new Mustang belonging to my husband’s aunt and uncle. Max was two-thirds of the way through his masterpiece when we discovered the little graffiti artist. His handiwork looked something like, MA and I would place a pretty hefty wager you know what’s coming next. He was trying to write his name, of course. In the absence of spite or malice, Max was trying to assert his presence; he exists.
More recently, I read Book of Negroes, by Lawrence Hill. In the book, the fictional main character, Aminata Diallo is an educated black slave who forges her way to freedom, serving the British in the Revolutionary War by registering the names of freed Loyalist slaves who requested permission to leave the US for resettlement in another British colony in Nova Scotia. As she is writing down the names of the endless streams of people, she is profoundly moved by the knowledge and realization that it is the first time her fellow black comrades have seen their name in writing and she’s aware that by writing their name, she is giving them a voice to say, “I was here. I exist. I am significant.”
I am not any different than my son, nor am I different than those characters in the book. I am striving for my own place in this world, for my own voice to be heard, to be significant. And it’s about here, when I acknowledge to myself that I want my life to be something of consequence that I hear my old enemy’s voice trying to put doubt in my mind; taunting me by telling me that seeking to be significant is the opposite of humble, it is self-seeking and proud. It’s true, if I’m not careful it would be easy to spend my life pursuing the wrong kind of things that will give me status. That’s when I have to turn to God’s holy word and ask him where I should find my significance.
First off, I have to answer the enemy’s taunt; is it self-seeking and unholy to desire a life of significance? In reply, God brings me to Genesis 12:1-3. In these three verses, God lays out his covenant promise to Abraham. God said he would make Abraham into a great nation, he would bless Abraham, he would make Abraham’s name great and Abraham would be a blessing. God said he would bless those that bless Abraham and whoever curses Abraham he would curse and all peoples on earth would be blessed through Abraham.
God promised Abraham that his name would be great and that he would be a blessing; in fact, that all peoples – that’s plural, would be blessed through him. I would say that answers the question. Does God want us to enjoy personal significance? Yes, and to prove it he built it into the covenant he made with Abraham and if we belong to Christ we are Abraham’s [spiritual] seed and heirs to the promise.
Personal significance is not exclusive of being used by God. In fact, it is all the more relevant and it’s something we should aspire, since it is promised as part of our inheritance through the covenant God made with Abraham and how much more true because of the new covenant by the blood of Jesus. Jesus came so that we could have [abundant, fulfilling, satisfying, significant] life.
Satan our enemy, a thief who comes only to steal, kill and destroy, and the Father of lies, attempts to deceive us first by saying that there is no lasting significance that we can aspire. If we dare oppose him with the truth of Scripture, then Satan will try to distract us with a myriad of unholy pursuits. Some pursuits for significance even look pretty holy, but always, they are self-seeking. Again, our rebuttal is found in Scripture. Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” I love this verse because it is essentially saying that personal significance happens naturally when we delight in our relationship with the Lord. The New Testament counterpart is found in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.”
How then, is a significant life defined for the believer? The irony of the Kingdom of God is that whoever is last in the kingdom is first and if we want to gain our life, we must first lose it. If we want to claim, “I was here,” we must first find ourselves in the one who is called, “I am.” God, who is the Great I am, has always been and forever will he be. Why should we settle for simply stating, “I was here,” because when we are found in Christ, we will have eternal life, and we are called by his own name. “I was here,” becomes a moot point because “I am in Christ.”
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