It is tragic how many children and adults stumble through life with no sense of purpose or very little self esteem. Many people are insecure and fake it and trudge through life feeling like failures while others try to masquerade their insecurity by bravado and pushing for position and power.
How I wish I could unzip every heart who reads these words and plant a few verses in your hearts. You are a child of destiny. That is what God created you to be. This has become one of my favorite nick names for a young lady in our church. I have shortened it of late to C.O.D. No, this does not mean cash on delivery but rather child of destiny.
God created us with purpose in mind. Read [Jeremiah 1:5]. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Please do not get hung on the fact that Jeremiah was appointed a prophet and miss the point of the verse. Before Jeremiah or you and I were born, God knew us. He had plans for Jeremiah’s life before he was even born just as the Lord has for yours and future children. He fashioned, shaped, and skillfully created us. “For You formed my inward parts, You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I ma fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works and my soul knows it very well.” [Ps 139:13-14] Over the past few months I have been blessed to welcome new babies into this world to excited parents. Those helpless infants are children of destiny as well.
God used his creativity to fashion and form you while you were still in the womb. He designed every facet of your being and shaped you with skill and precision. You may feel very ordinary and very average but you were designed for destiny if you will walk in relationship with your Creator. God has plans and things for all His children to accomplish. “We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so we would walk in them.” [Eph 2:10]
Some of you were created to teach, coach, or administrate. Others of you were created to repair things that break, to enforce the law, to give care to children, to construct things, and work in the medical profession. You were created to train your own children and prepare them for life and to influence the lives of others along the way. The list could go on and on. I was created to preach and to write. God designed and destined me to do those things and before I was born He knew that I would be planted in the Paradise community and be called to serve a wonderful church located in an extraordinary community.
From time to time I eat lunch with my boys at the schools. It does not matter which campus I am eating on and which people are seated around me I always tell them that we are sitting at the “cool” table. It is my hope to build up the lives of young people to remind them continually they are children of destiny. Many of them have never heard those words spoken over them. What if you and I could speak words of love, support, and affirmation over children from every walk of life? What if I had the opportunity to look eye ball to eye ball with a youngster over a plate or sack lunch and tell them they are children of destiny? Would their self esteem not improve for at least a few minutes?
Recently I was eating lunch on one of our campuses with one of my boys and I nicknamed a little boy seated next to me “Cool Breeze.” Do you know that every time I go back to that campus that bright eyed little boy reminds me that he is “Cool Breeze.”
Yet, how can adults pass on something to children they have not possessed for themselves. Many adults reading this feel nothing like a child of destiny. You may feel like a loser, an under achiever, unwanted, unloved, and unaccepted. People can be cruel and the children’s nursery rhyme about sticks and stones breaking our bones but words never hurting us is a lie. Words do hurt. Cruel, evil, demented, and harsh words spoken over all of us as children can still have impact on our psyches as adults. How can insecure adults ever really pass on with conviction to your own children and children in the community at large that they are children of destiny? Insecure people live life worried about what others think of them or go to the other extreme and rebel with hard hearts to push people away.
I don’t care what you have done. You can still be a child of destiny in a right relationship with God. The Bible and churches are filled with former murderers, adulterers, liars, cheats, deceivers, insecure, broken and wounded people. One by one God has taken such people and redeemed them from shameful pasts and given them destiny. It is beautiful thing to behold.
I know of one such person right here in Paradise. As a child he was physically abused, verbally abused, and abandoned by his father. He was a social misfit who was often sullen and withdrawn from people. As he grew older he became angrier on the inside often resulting in physical altercations with fellow students. He was a rebellious insecure and misunderstood young man. Teachers tried to help but often threw their hands up in despair because of the young man’s stubbornness. Today this troubled youngster is a husband and father and few would ever suspect troubled past of his former life. He today is a child of destiny. You may have met him or seen him around town, eating at a café, watching a ball game, or even attending worship. This formerly disturbed young man I know very well for I AM THAT MAN! Meeting Jesus Christ made all the difference for me and now I live my life as a child of destiny. It is my mission to encourage others that they are children of destiny too.
If you have not met the Jesus I met, He alone gives life purpose and meaning. You were created for so much more than you can imagine. If this resonates with you I encourage you to talk to a friend, one of our many pastors in town, and most importantly to the Lord Himself. You were created to be a child of destiny. If you want the best possible life, the most joy, the greatest sense of fulfillment, and the most exciting adventure you must live out your destiny designed by God. Let me close with one last verse. “’For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.’” [Jer 29:11]
Hold your head up high as you go about your day. You are a child of destiny and you relate to other children of destiny. Some may sit at your table and sleep under your roof, others might be best friends, some you might not even know their names. Please remember you are a child of destiny when you enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ and you live among a community filled with children of destiny. Pass it on others who may not have heard this wonderful news.
How I wish I could unzip every heart who reads these words and plant a few verses in your hearts. You are a child of destiny. That is what God created you to be. This has become one of my favorite nick names for a young lady in our church. I have shortened it of late to C.O.D. No, this does not mean cash on delivery but rather child of destiny.
God created us with purpose in mind. Read [Jeremiah 1:5]. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Please do not get hung on the fact that Jeremiah was appointed a prophet and miss the point of the verse. Before Jeremiah or you and I were born, God knew us. He had plans for Jeremiah’s life before he was even born just as the Lord has for yours and future children. He fashioned, shaped, and skillfully created us. “For You formed my inward parts, You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I ma fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works and my soul knows it very well.” [Ps 139:13-14] Over the past few months I have been blessed to welcome new babies into this world to excited parents. Those helpless infants are children of destiny as well.
God used his creativity to fashion and form you while you were still in the womb. He designed every facet of your being and shaped you with skill and precision. You may feel very ordinary and very average but you were designed for destiny if you will walk in relationship with your Creator. God has plans and things for all His children to accomplish. “We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so we would walk in them.” [Eph 2:10]
Some of you were created to teach, coach, or administrate. Others of you were created to repair things that break, to enforce the law, to give care to children, to construct things, and work in the medical profession. You were created to train your own children and prepare them for life and to influence the lives of others along the way. The list could go on and on. I was created to preach and to write. God designed and destined me to do those things and before I was born He knew that I would be planted in the Paradise community and be called to serve a wonderful church located in an extraordinary community.
From time to time I eat lunch with my boys at the schools. It does not matter which campus I am eating on and which people are seated around me I always tell them that we are sitting at the “cool” table. It is my hope to build up the lives of young people to remind them continually they are children of destiny. Many of them have never heard those words spoken over them. What if you and I could speak words of love, support, and affirmation over children from every walk of life? What if I had the opportunity to look eye ball to eye ball with a youngster over a plate or sack lunch and tell them they are children of destiny? Would their self esteem not improve for at least a few minutes?
Recently I was eating lunch on one of our campuses with one of my boys and I nicknamed a little boy seated next to me “Cool Breeze.” Do you know that every time I go back to that campus that bright eyed little boy reminds me that he is “Cool Breeze.”
Yet, how can adults pass on something to children they have not possessed for themselves. Many adults reading this feel nothing like a child of destiny. You may feel like a loser, an under achiever, unwanted, unloved, and unaccepted. People can be cruel and the children’s nursery rhyme about sticks and stones breaking our bones but words never hurting us is a lie. Words do hurt. Cruel, evil, demented, and harsh words spoken over all of us as children can still have impact on our psyches as adults. How can insecure adults ever really pass on with conviction to your own children and children in the community at large that they are children of destiny? Insecure people live life worried about what others think of them or go to the other extreme and rebel with hard hearts to push people away.
I don’t care what you have done. You can still be a child of destiny in a right relationship with God. The Bible and churches are filled with former murderers, adulterers, liars, cheats, deceivers, insecure, broken and wounded people. One by one God has taken such people and redeemed them from shameful pasts and given them destiny. It is beautiful thing to behold.
I know of one such person right here in Paradise. As a child he was physically abused, verbally abused, and abandoned by his father. He was a social misfit who was often sullen and withdrawn from people. As he grew older he became angrier on the inside often resulting in physical altercations with fellow students. He was a rebellious insecure and misunderstood young man. Teachers tried to help but often threw their hands up in despair because of the young man’s stubbornness. Today this troubled youngster is a husband and father and few would ever suspect troubled past of his former life. He today is a child of destiny. You may have met him or seen him around town, eating at a café, watching a ball game, or even attending worship. This formerly disturbed young man I know very well for I AM THAT MAN! Meeting Jesus Christ made all the difference for me and now I live my life as a child of destiny. It is my mission to encourage others that they are children of destiny too.
If you have not met the Jesus I met, He alone gives life purpose and meaning. You were created for so much more than you can imagine. If this resonates with you I encourage you to talk to a friend, one of our many pastors in town, and most importantly to the Lord Himself. You were created to be a child of destiny. If you want the best possible life, the most joy, the greatest sense of fulfillment, and the most exciting adventure you must live out your destiny designed by God. Let me close with one last verse. “’For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.’” [Jer 29:11]
Hold your head up high as you go about your day. You are a child of destiny and you relate to other children of destiny. Some may sit at your table and sleep under your roof, others might be best friends, some you might not even know their names. Please remember you are a child of destiny when you enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ and you live among a community filled with children of destiny. Pass it on others who may not have heard this wonderful news.
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