I am on Day 12 of A Purpose Driven Life. So I'm on Purpose #1 right now: "You were planned for God's Pleasure." The last couple of days as I've pondered this, I've wondered "What if we had never had children? What if God did not bring our son into our family?" It's hard to imagine life without him now, but for the sake of pondering my purpose, I did.
My main purpose for being here on this earth is not to be a mom. I am here for God's pleasure, and it pleased him to give us a son. But what if it didn't? I think what got me on that was the thought of being God's friend. Friendship includes honesty regarding our faults and feelings. Rick Warren mentions the Psalms and Job – God could take and even appreciated their feelings of sorrow and anger right along with the praise and adoration. I couldn't help but think of Hannah and how she went to God with her sorrow over not bearing any children. God did eventually give her children. But I have known women who desired a family very much and so far do not have what they desire. The apostle Paul remained single, and therefore never had such a family.
So it pleases God to put some people together as families, to have some couples be only couples, and for some to remain single, having no husband or wife to share their life with. If you think about it, there is the potential for pain in each of those possibilities. What we need to do with that pain is take it to our Creator. As Job states "He gives and takes away." God not giving, or possibly taking away what was given, hurts and makes us angry. That's OK! Our purpose is to please God. As a friend of The King, go to Him and tell him about it. Boy that's hard. I suppose we need to be in the habit of talking to Him often anyway if we are to be that friend of The King. I am only just learning to do this. I'll ponder more thoughts on this as I work through my 40 days of purpose.
Today's verse: Come near to God and He will come near to you. James 4:8a (NIV)
