Connect the Dots

It’s amazing the games that amuse us in childhood.

Starting with peek-a-boo and moving up to duck-duck-goose, seemingly simple (and sometimes silly) tasks can keep us occupy for hours.

One such activity is the game of the connect the dots. You’re given a sheet of paper with a smatter of numbered dots and the idea is to, in numerical order, draw lines between each point. When you are done, you’re greeted with a completed picture;  a picture that you probably couldn’t see at each point along the way.

Life is a lot like that, except, somehow, as we get older, we take less joy in each step, and want focus more on the final outcome. We concentrate on the end, and not the in-betweens. But rarely does God tell us that picture that He is painting with our lives. Rarely does He reveal what He’s using us to accomplish or the trajectory that He send us on. Instead, He asks us to go to the next point – to do the next right thing as someone once told me. And we trust, that in His time, we’ll see what He see – the beautiful picture that He’s using our lives to draw. We’ll see where each step lead, why each point was necessary, and the lessons He taught us in the in-betweens.

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Incomparable

Nowadays, it’s popular to tell kids how special they are. We are told that we should focus on what makes them unique, to play to their strengths, and to not worry about the areas where they may lack talent or ability. Kids are supposed to be self-assured, to be confident, and to believe that they can do anything.

Even though it doesn’t take kids very long to realize that’s not true.

They can’t do anything. After all, as I once said, despite any desire I may have, I was never going to be a linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys. Some things are inherent to who we are, and no amount of willpower or fortitude will change this. So young people are forced to reconcile what they’ve been told with what they can clearly see as reality. And more often than not, this leads them to compare.

“I may not be as fast as Bobby, but I’m faster than Joe”

“I’m the second prettiest girl in the class – we voted on it.”

“I may not be smart, but at least I’m smarter than George.”

And so on and so on, until they’ve made their lists, assigned their categories, and everyone fits in a nice little box.

And then those children grow up. They take those same lists, and those same categories, and begin checking off boxes.

“Kyle got his first sports car on the day he turned 18; I want one too.”

“Susie was married by 21, so I should be too.”

“John bought his first house; that means I should be buying one too.”

And on and on it goes.

However, in reality, just like God didn’t apportion everyone the same set of skills and talents, God didn’t write everyone’s life story the same way. What He has planned for one person at a certain stage in life, may not be what He has planned for another. God wants to use you for the purposes He has planned for you, not what He has planned for someone else.

And if we stop to think about it, we should be grateful that’s the case. Because it means God has fashioned and designed our lives in such a way that through it, He gets the most glory. He’s gifted us and placed us in circumstances so that He can use our lives for His Kingdom’s sake.  He’s fashioned our story so that it can become part of His story.

And for the Christian, there’s nothing that can compare to that.

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