Understanding Significance

It seems this world is spinning faster and faster. We only have a precious few years, 80 or so if we’re lucky, to experience life on this planet. In the grand scheme of eternity, that really is a short time, and it’s a tragedy to live those years feeling insignificant.

I must admit, it’s easy to do. It’s easy to look at what other people have accomplished, the success they have achieved and their significance in the eyes of society, and feel we have some how missed the boat; we’ve fallen short. It’s all too easy to feel we’ve landed in the vast ocean called ‘insignificance’. It’s easy to look at people who ‘are’ significant, and conclude that we, being so far behind such people, ‘are not.’

But, if we ever do think in such a way, we would only be fooling ourselves, for it is quite clearly not the truth. The truth is that we are incredibly significant, every one of us. Regardless if we’ve never succeeded in anything we’ve attempted, or if we’ve never attempted anything to begin with. It’s regardless if we’ve failed time and time again, or if we’ve never started anything because of the fear of possible failure. It’s regardless of the missed opportunities, foolish decision, or wasted years. It’s regardless if society tells us we are insignificant and thinks we are at the bottom of the pile; irrelevant, unpopular and unknown. Despite any, or all, of these things, you still are significant – but why?

You are significant because God thinks you are. Now that may sound simple, but I can assure you it is divinely profound. It can come as a shock at first, but it really is quite logical. Significance is, after all, not really about what you do, but about what others think of you.

Now, in the world, what others think about you has everything to do with ‘what you do’, but in God’s eyes it’s different. In God’s eyes, your significance has nothing to do with ‘what you do’; rather it’s got everything to do with ‘who God is‘. God is love, and without a doubt he loves you incredibly. He loves you so much he was actually willing to let his divine Son die for you. In fact he Jesus was not only willing, but he actually did die for you.

It’s easy for us to accept that Jesus is truly significant in the eyes of God; he has, after all, ‘accomplished’ so much (you know, he did create all things, that’s a pretty big accomplishment by anyone’s standards.) and I think that’s why, in part, Jesus laid down his life for us. He wanted us to know just how significant we are in the eyes of our Father in heaven. God actually finds us as significant as Jesus himself. So much so that he allowed Jesus to lay down his life for us, that we could actually become like him, one with him – as significant as him.

The reality is that God doesn’t consider someone significant because of what they accomplish, but rather because he is Love, it’s his nature, and he loves his children wildly and completly. Jesus, who ‘did‘ so much, is ultimately not considered significant by God for his works, but for his sonship. God desires that we also recognise our significance in our sonship.

I believe that it is only through the revelation of Jesus, and the reality of his love for us, that we can rest in the truth of our own significance. Sure, the world may disagree, but we know that God doesn’t, for he is the one who makes us significant.

The world will always push you to strive to become someone significant; Jesus simply asks you to rest in the knowledge that you are significant to him.

What good news! You are significant, not based on what you do or accomplish, but based on the fact that God considered you significant enough to not only die for, but even more than that, significant enough to unite himself to you for the rest of eternity, living forever with him in his endless love.

If God thinks you are this significant, then I choose to see you that way too. You are so loved.

Written by Mick Mooney