“What is my place in this world?” - Is it too late to ask?
Teenagers face the question, perhaps more than those of us who are not: what’s my place in this world? It’s a healthy question methinks.
Some of us may have forgotten that struggle – either content with the path we’re on or accepting of our lot in life. Then there are those of us who’ve never really come to terms with the stage of life we’re in. I’m not just talking about the unrequited: “If only”; “I shouldn’t have”; “I could have” and the like. Sometimes we wake up with that sense of purposeless. We look back at the field we spent so much time ploughing and ask: “for what.” We come up with a suitably parental response to keep going like: “come on put on the uniform and go to work.” Perhaps we are reminded of what we believe the purpose to be and take courage and move on, motivated and cheerful, brushing off that devilish little intrusion into our contentment. Or you don’t and it lingers like a hangover from too much of something that seemed good enough to indulge in the night before.
Indulgence often does that, brings up that question, the one you asked when you were a teenager. “Is this what it’s all about?” Getting here where I have the freedom to indulge in the thing that I want. The thing that’s not only not there the next morning but couldn’t face another bite of, sip of, moment of, if it was. After all, this morning I have to face reality, none of which was washed away by my television binge, escapist novel, vice or even sleep. Today is a new day.
A ‘New Day’ now there’s a thought: Jeremiah a prophet who contributed to the Old Testament, someone who contemplated these questions not only for himself but for his entire nation: Israel
“The thought of my pain, my homelessness, is bitter poison. I think of it constantly, and my spirit is depressed. Yet hope returns when I remember this one thing:
The LORD's unfailing love and mercy still continue, Fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise.
The LORD is all I have, and so in him I put my hope. The LORD is good to everyone who trusts in him, So it is best for us to wait in patience---to wait for him to save us—“ Lamentations 3: 20-26
Simon Peter’s response was remarkably similar when faced with the very unpopular choice of following Jesus after he had said something particularly offensive to His people.
John 6:68 records: “ Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life.”
Where else can we go? The Lord is IT. We don’t know what the future holds but we can know who holds the future.
We live in a subculture where we want nanny voices to say “there there” and make it all better. Or perhaps we look for stirring words of motivation from inspiring people. Often we feel, as the eminent Austrian psychoanalyst Victor Frankel believed, that you will be content as soon as you discover your sense of ‘meaning’ - your purpose. Well that sounds like a handy thing to discover – but when such questions plague us let’s face the One who holds the keys to life, who claims to have a future and a hope for us. Obvious?
Jeremiah assures us that God’s love is unfailing and new toward us each morning – it’s an unconditional thing. We would do well to reflect on that – His Love is new every morning, it’s all about today! So you’ve lost your way, or maybe taking a moment to contemplate the manufacturer’s built-in re-alignment questions. Jesus didn’t necessarily give Peter an answer right there and then about where to go, what he was for, where did he fit into the grand scheme of things. He just gave him a choice and Jesus gives you a choice each new day: “come.” The invitation to come is an invitation of hope and I suppose hope is like a waking dream.
Peter sounds almost exasperated when he ‘comes’ “Where else can we go.” But at the end of the same book this man sat down and ate fish and bread with the resurrected Jesus discussing the way ahead even his death, his place in this world.
What I really want to draw attention to is not that we should ask the question with the view to getting an answer. Rather that we should ask the right Someone with the intention of listening to whatever it is He chooses to say. It’s another excuse to cleave to, confide in and covet Jesus.
There’s just no substitute to coming to Jesus in quietness and trust – your place in this world.
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