When I was on a mission trip to India several years ago, I spent time in the western portion of the country, an arid place not far from the desert. For each family to survive, one of the family members was given the responsibility of making the trip each morning to the nearest spring, where they would collect as much water as they could carry and then bring it back to the family shack. The chore would take most of the morning, consuming time that would otherwise be spent attending school. For that reason, the task of fetching water was assigned to the females, since that culture didn’t expect women to have a formal education.
As I watched this play out, a rather interesting thought popped into my head – what if God has placed the cure for cancer in the mind of a young Indian girl, and until we as a society figure out how to free her from such a menial task and educate her, we will have to continue with our suffering?
In the beautiful words of Psalm 139, the psalmist declares that God formed his inmost being, knitting him together in his mothers womb, with the result being that the writer realizes that he is fearfully and wonderfully made. It is a powerful statement of the inherent dignity in each human being, and the sense that each is endowed by our Creator with more than just a few inalienable rights. We have been endowed with purpose which, combined with our specific life experiences and situations, makes each one of us unique. We all have something to offer. The question that we face is whether we can carve out the time in our daily schedules to develop that purpose that sits within us, waiting to be revealed.
Here in the US, we have moved beyond the point where we need to decide between educating our children or dying of thirst. However, that doesn’t mean that we don’t face a seemingly endless stream of obligations and opportunities that vie for nearly every moment of our day. We can get so busy with work, volunteer opportunities, family obligations, and the multitude of distractions that steal minutes and hours from us that, before we know it, a new week has started and it feels like we’ve gone nowhere. And yet, so many people are frustrated because they know that they were made for more – that God put a deeper purpose within them – and they haven’t figured out how to bring it to life.
For us, the key is learning how to say “No”. Developing your purpose, whether it is writing the song that resides in your heart, or starting a non-profit that addresses your passion, or simply becoming a better parent, requires saying “No” to some of the good (and perhaps not-so-good) things that have previously filled your schedule, so that you can say “Yes” to the thing that makes you different from everyone else on Earth. It might even mean saying “No” to a little bit of sleep, but if the end result is something that reveals what God knit into you while you were still in your mother’s womb, then it will be worth it.
You may well benefit from the gift that God has hidden inside of you, but the broader truth is that you have been blessed so that you can then be a blessing to others. So, see if there’s some unpolished gem sitting inside your soul, yearning to be set free. If so, say “No” to whatever you can so that you can say “Yes” to fulfilling your unique purpose. It may not be the cure to cancer, but what if it is?
Peace and blessings – Pastor Aaron