How Did I Get To Be Me? And Why?
When I was a little kid I had a strange and wild imagination. I would lie awake at night wondering how I got to be me. Why was I not a dinner table chair instead? (That only freaked me out even more – thinking about the possibility of being something that doesn’t even know it exists. How do you exist without knowing you exist? Freaky!) Why was I not a bear in Alaska? How did I get to be born in my little home town in the United States instead of to a family in Australia? It’s not that I wanted to be something else. It just freaked me out wondering, how I got to be me, and why am I me here, and now? I get the whole genes and chromosomes thing now, but those do not make a soul.
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As I got older I realized just how close I came to never being born. My mother only wanted two children, a boy and a girl. Before I was born, my mother had a girl and sadly, two miscarriages. If one of those had survived my parents would not have had me. Then there is the extremely small chance that I would even be the sperm that survives. So why am I me? Why was I born a little baby brother in my small speck of the planet around the mid to late 20th century? I found the answer this week in Proverbs.
A friend is always loyal,and a brother is born to help in time of need. Proverbs 17:17 NLT
Ah! So simple. I was born me to my family in my time and place, so I could help my family in time of need and be a loyal friend to others. Who knew?
Actually it’s a lot like why Jesus was born.
For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:45 NLT
So now as an old grown-up I still lie in bed awake thinking about how I got to be me. Out of all the things I could have been (if anything at all) and all the times and places I could have been born, I was born to my family and community here and now. God placed me here by some miraculous design that even genes and chromosomes can’t fully explain.
And yet, if I fail to help my family and friends in their time of need, then this great miracle of my existence is all about nothing!
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