Perhaps it’s mid-life crisis, perhaps it’s changing hormones, perhaps it’s watching and caring for my father journeying what is likely his final round in life.
I’ve been thinking that if I were to die, there isn’t anything that I am doing where I cannot be replaced. Yes, friends may miss me and my unique personality, but they will go on and still live a wonderful life without me. My family will definitely miss me, but again, I am not so unique that something will fall apart if I’m not there. Someone else will cook, someone else will give my children advice, someone else will probably do a better job of cleaning the house. Someone else will teach Sunday School, run the children ministry; someone else will keep the world going.
Do I have a unique purpose that only I can fill?
My conclusion is, no.
God gives me a purpose for me to live out, but if I don’t live it out, God’s work will still be done, through someone else. His will can never be thwarted based on people’s obedience or disobedience.
And if I were to die today, the hole that I left will be covered by God’s sovereign plan.
While I felt a bit depress by these thoughts, that I am really quite useless, my daughter reminds me that there can be no other way. With people dying every second, the world will fall apart if people were so unique in their function that they are irreplacable. That makes sense! God made it in a way that we are all replacable and life can continue without too much disruption in the circle of life.
But what does it mean for me? How should I live? How do I feel some sense of significance?
My conclusion is, I do the best I can wherever I am as God requires of me. I will find fulfillment in living for God each day. Not that I am indispensable in the world at large, nor am I unique in the entire scheme of the universe, but that in God’s eyes, how I live is unique to Him and to me.