Ephesians 3: You have a story
10: so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.
My mind was blown when I read this.
God has chosen us - the church - to be the revelation of His wisdom to the spiritual rulers and authorities. This is to angels, to demons, to what Paul calls the powers and principalities. We - the church - are God’s masterpiece - made to do good works and in doing so, showing God’s wisdom in His eternal plan - which was realized in Jesus. God chose before time began to create us. Us, humans, who would fall, disobey God, and reject Him. He chose to come into our world and die for our sins, knowing that still many of us would reject Him, and even those of us who did accept Him, would fail over and over again. We think that by what we do, we somehow distort His image, or soil His name. We think that because of our sin He must somehow love us less. Or somehow be disappointed in us.
But no. Here, we realize that our story, both corporately and individually, is all part of God’s plan. God’s eternal purpose was to show His wisdom and mercy and compassion and grace and love to the entire realm of created things - not just us, but the purely spiritual beings, and, I think, also the purely physical creations - through us. We are God’s masterpiece.
And I believe this applies to our lives individually as well.
In your life, your successes, failures, mistakes, griefs, are all part of God’s plan. God is glorified through your actions. Your life reveals God’s wisdom and power and glory. Maybe you don’t see that right now. But the world we perceive and the things we think we feel are poor, poor approximations for the reality that we find in Christ. The things we know, the things we understand, are all fading away. They are ethereal compared to the “substance” that is faith (Hebrews 11:1). God’s truth is much more real than ours. Do you think you weren’t worth it? That God is not working in your life? That’s ok. It will change. God is more steadfast, more loving, more real than you are. But I digress.
Your story. Embrace it. With all its happy times, its sad times, its hope for the future, its dismal failures. Your story has been given to you - it is a gift from God. He means for it to glorify His name. And He is glorified from bringing you out of darkness and into light. He is glorified by giving you unending joy that surpasses all understanding. He is glorified by making you into who He wants you to be.
You will be blessed.
Because we’re not writing the story of our lives. We are not the author of our lives. God is.
