I am self-made. Didn’t anyone tell you? I brought myself into the world when I decided to be born on a snowy Sunday morning. Then I figured out how cells replicate to grow my own heart and spine and head and arms and legs to a reasonable height and size. Then I filled my own mind from kindergarten to graduation with information I gleaned from the great works of literature. Well dear friends, obviously I’m joking, but sometimes it feels like the pressure we are under. It seems like it came out of nowhere, but somehow I feel like we are all being told to make sure that we got the memo: we are the ones who define our lives as a solitary story of self-realization and progress. Identity. Work. Learn. Fix. Change. Sexuality. Every exciting aspect of our identity and experience of life sounds like it is my choice — it is up to me — to design what I need to learn so that I can learn to conquer a world of my own making.
It’s hard to remember a deeper, comforting truth: we are — in fact — built on a foundation not our own. We were born because two other people created a combination of biological matter. We went to schools where dozens and dozens of people crafted ideas and activities to construct categories in our minds. We learned skills honed by generations of craftspeople. We pray and worship with spiritual ideas refined by centuries of tradition. Almost nothing about us is original. And dear friends, I must tell you — Thank God.
This phenomena reminds me of the account of creation in Genesis: God breathes oxygen into lungs in an instance of divine CPR. I love picturing that God, the Only Holy One who can create out of nothing — ex nihilo. God, who set the cornerstone of our lives and our faith, laid the first brick. The Master Builder whose carefully poured foundation is what we build on top of now. It certainly feels like a template for the rest of our experience.
Some day I will be diagnosed with a terminal illness, or I will suddenly just leave — no warnings, no goodbyes, just an immediate departure without any worrying or announcement. I try to picture how much anyone would remember me — none as I see myself. I think about this more than ever. But sooner than later I return to the foundation that is the part that doesn’t always show. Whether it is our parents, our teachers, mentors, friends, churches, or neighbors, people have been pouring into us from in utero. We are all standing on a foundation for God’s sake! Now this should come as an incredible relief! Our only job is to build on what we’ve been given, given by God every single day of our lives. Every single one of our gifts we can trace back to the creativity, generosity, and plan of God. I don’t get to change the foundation laid down by the Lord Jesus Christ! I can reject it, walk away from it, deny it, reach the conclusion that I feel differently about it. I can even convince myself that I alone can redefine it. And worst of all, I can live as if without it! But God created me, gave me life as He planned it from eternity. I can either mess it up or build on it.
All I can conclude is this: Thank God we are a group project, which is just another way off saying: thank God there are churches.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.
From the Bible:
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” Jeremiah 29:11.
“The hearts of men and women plan their way, but the Lord establishes their steps” Proverbs 16:9.
“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” Ephesians 2:10.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these” Matthew 6:25-34.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast”
Ephesians 2:8-9.
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” Philippians 4:6-7.
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