Author, educator and commentator Dr. James Denison has been pastor of Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas since June, 1998. Prior to that, he was pastor at churches in Atlanta, Georgia, as well as Midland (at First Baptist!) and Mansfield, Texas. Greetings from the frozen hinterlands of Dallas, Texas. We are coated in ice this morning, and no one is going anywhere for a while. It doesn't matter how famous or wealthy you might be. On days like this, nature likes to remind us that we are each a rather small part of a very large world.
Today's Wall Street Journal carries a story which makes the same point in a fascinating way. You may be familiar with Little Rock, the capital city of Arkansas. But ask locals which rock is "little rock," and you'll probably draw a blank look. The city's namesake once jutted into a crook of the Arkansas River from the south bank, making an excellent landing spot for ferries and riverboats. But when a railroad bridge was constructed at the spot in 1872, huge chunks of the rock were blasted away. What remains was hidden by weeds, mud, and eventually, graffiti.
Now the city is spending $650,000 to excavate the remains of the Little Rock and restore it to a place of dignity. The historic sandstone is estimated to be 300 million years old and constitutes part of the Ouachita Mountain range. But one man calls it "the toenail of the foothills." It's not much to look at, but it will soon be surrounded by a walkway lined with plaques telling the city's history.
That's the way of things—you are what you do. If you are large and impressive, you are accorded honor and respect. If you're small and unattractive, the world wants to blast you away to make room for something large and impressive. If you're iced in, you're unproductive and useless to the rest of us, even though you're the same person you were before the ice storms hit. You are what you produce, how you perform, how popular you are in the eyes of others. Counselors have a saying: "I'm not what I think I am, or what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am."
Your Creator begs to differ. He thinks that you are of such intrinsic value that you are worth the death of his Son. He didn't need another person on a planet with 6,880,249,764 people on it (as of this moment). He didn't really need another preacher, or homemaker, or teacher, or doctor, or whatever it is that you do. But he wanted another child to love. So he chose to make you, and he loves you as you are, whatever the world says of you.
The first step to understanding God's call on our lives is believing that he does in fact have a purpose for us, and that it is "good, pleasing and perfect" (Romans 12:2). He wants only what is best for you. So ask him to lead you and use you for eternal significance today, and he will. Is your Father waiting on your next prayer?
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