Each one of us is to believe that we have a place in the
mind of God and in His creation, separate and distinct from every other
creature, and that He loves us with a private, personal love. He has
assigned to each of us a special mission and service which no one else
can do in just the way that God wants us to do it.
If we do not believe this, then we do not believe that God
is the Infinite One whom the Bible reveals, and we do not believe in
our destiny as revealed in Scripture.
The Bible contains numerous passages proving that each
person has a special vocation in the providence of God and that if he or
she is yielded in obedient faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, that special
vocation will be carried out. We are told that “the stars in their
courses fought against Sisera,” from which we learn that God appoints to
every star a special circuit along which it is to move.
Then we read that God appoints every man to his work (see Mark 13:34). And again, that John the Baptist fulfilled his course.
Before Jesus died, He prayed to the Father, “I have
finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do” (John 17:4). Paul said he
wanted to finish his course with joy. We are each one told to “run…the
race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1).
The Bible is full of this thought, that for each one of us
there is a course, a race, a work, an individual life to be lived. To
this end we have been created and redeemed, and for this purpose there
is ample provision of grace and inspiration.
Let’s look at our personal vocation from God’s side. Our relation to God must come first of all.
The reason we are created and the significance of all our
labor, trials, difficulties, successes, failures and in fact everything
that belongs to us must be looked at first of all in light of our
relation to God. It is certain that because He formed us and redeemed
us, He must take more interest in us and have a greater regard for us
than all other creatures combined. And again, it is evident that God has
given us a mission to fill in His own mind that is in proportion to our
special makeup and that He foresees for each of us possibilities that
we do not see and that our fellow creatures would never suspect.
Most of the lives in the human race are lived in obscurity
and never known beyond a circle of a few acquaintances. Of the millions
on Earth, only a small percent ever come into public notice or form a
part of recorded history.
Of that number most live only for self and sin and amount
to almost nothing in the purpose of God, and are total failures,
perhaps, on God’s side. In fact, it is likely that the number of human
beings who are known in public life and to history are just as few in
proportion as the number of water-drops that are visible in the sea.
Hence it is certain that God has not made all the human souls as a mere
parade but that they are made for Him, to love and serve Him, to fill a
private mission in His love and will which we do not understand.
Many wonder what God gave them an existence for, as they
are so obscure, so helpless, so hedged about. But if such souls could
only know enough to abandon themselves to God’s will, they would see
that they are capable of living unto God and glorifying Him with a
private worship and obedience that will satisfy the divine purpose in
their creation. And in the end they will find that they filled the
sphere of God’s plan for them.
If one soul fails to do its part in the purpose of God, He
will miss that work from His universe. It is said of a certain musician
who was conducting a great orchestra that when one instrument failed to
strike one note in the program, the master’s keen ear detected the
absence of that one note in the performance.
God is so infinite that if one little soul living in
obscurity in some hid-away place fails to fill its mission, He will miss
that note in the vast orchestra of the universe, which is perpetually
sounding forth His praise. It is not any mere action that God would miss
so much as the love and confidence of some trusting soul.
The highest mission any creature can fill is to love the
Lord with all the soul, mind and will. And this secret mission to which
we are called takes rank above all outward action, public history or
splendid performance in the eyes of our fellow creatures.
We must also look at our vocation on the man side, or in
relation to our fellow creatures. God has arranged countless threads of
relationship between each one of us and all other creatures, and so
multiplied, so intricate are they as to be beyond all our calculations.
In one sense we may say that God is weaving out a vast fabric in human
history and that each soul forms a thread or a stitch in the enormous
pattern.
God is using us creatures in our life-work to touch
thousands of others and influence them, as well as to have thousands of
others touch us by word or influence or personal presence. Thus
creatures are blended with creatures in a tangled maze of ministry for
help or for trial, for joy or for sorrow, for happiness or for
disappointment, so that our special mission is related to the special
mission of others, in order to make one whole, and yet not interfere
with each of us filling our appointed place.
As every creature that walks or crawls on the earth leaves
its print in some form or other, so every responsible soul in passing
through life leaves an imprint on other souls. But that imprint can only
fulfill God’s will when such souls are living under the guidance of His
Spirit.
Bill Wiese 
Paul McGuire 
