Let's be honest: We all want to know that we matter to this world. Deep down, each of us secretly dreams of putting a dent in the universe. We want to know that we are leaving some fingerprints on the world around us.
There's nothing wrong with desiring significance. The Bible tells us that were created by God to be significant. He's designed you and me to center our complete sense of significance around the value He places upon each of us. But when we search for that significance outside of His design, things begin to fall apart for us.
Maybe you give yourself to an unhealthy relationship.
Maybe you spend way beyond your means and accumulate some nasty debt.
Maybe you act like the life of the party so others will pay attention to you.
When we continually pursue significance apart from God, a couple of things will happen:
1. We will seek ESCAPES which inevitably ISOLATE us from God and from those he has placed around us. This leads to an overwhelming sense of LONELINESS because we know that we are not being true to who we are created to be. This loneliness leads us back to the desire for more escape. You can imagine how this cycle will quickly tailspin into a downward spiral.
2. We will invent EXAGGERATIONS about our significance, because of the need to JUSTIFY our value to others. Because these exaggerations are untrue, we will wrestle with GUILT for perpetrating the illusion. To suppress that guilt, we must create greater illusions. Thus begins another downward spiral.
The truth is that your very existence is proof of the immeasurable significance God has placed upon you.
He created you, therefore you matter.
He sacrificed his son for you, because you are worth that much to him.
He seeks you out every day, because he wants to have a personal relationship with you.
You have no reason to escape from who you are. You have no reason to exaggerate what you do. You are a unique creation of God, designed to reflect who he is in a way no one ever has before you and now one ever will after you.
He loves you; he adores you; he brags about you. You have nothing to prove to him or to those around you. Live in this confidence and trust him to work in you and through you. This is the only way you will truly feel significant.
And you don't even have to try.