Ever Wonder Why You Are Here?

December 11, 2007

By T. Ray Rachels

My family and I were vacationing a few years ago on the coast of Maine, walking the Marginal Way, a famous one-mile walking path that meanders along a beautiful and rocky shoreline near Kennebunkport.

Out near the ocean’s edge a man was kneeling over a small, spindly flower that was growing alone between the rocks, the great Atlantic Ocean splashing at its back. The man had a big lens camera and was focusing on a close-up shot of the solitary, lonely beauty of this defiant and courageous wildflower.

The moment was classic.

Here was a unique piece of God’s creation, fragile at best, defying all odds and waving her beauty as if to say, “Here I am, exactly where God put me, growing as best I can and holding on against these elements. And if today is all I have, then today I’ll blossom and bloom and wave. God made me just as I am, to be here, at this time, in this place, and I am committed to fulfill His purpose for me.”

I loved that flower. You could look at her -- or not look at her. She would grow, blossom and

wave anyway. What wonderful self-confidence.

The more I watched, the more I felt a subtle, personal identity with those moments, born I’m

sure by the Holy Spirit’s prompting that God’s business with me is like that.

He puts me where He will! My business, as a unique piece of His creation, fragile at best, is to defy all odds, to wave His beauty, and to say to whatever environment or situation I’m in, “Here I am, exactly where God put me, growing as best I can … holding on. And if today is all I have, then today I’ll blossom and bloom and wave. I am committed to fulfill His purpose in me!”

"In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory" (Ephesians 1:11,12, NIV).

My natural instincts want a safe, comfortable place -- and honestly, I pray for that more often than I pray for a hard place.

But the eternal side of what God is creating in me, and urging in me, says that if I can find just the slightest crack in the rock through which to grow, and the slightest chance to form a blossom, to produce a unique creation that God intends for me alone, and I’ll then -- standing alone or with company -- declare the glory of God as He shines through me.

I think, quite likely, that’s at the root of why God put you and me here in the first place!

-- T. Ray Rachels is superintendent of the Southern California District of the Assemblies of God.