100 Days to Brave, day 14: God Made You on Purpose

Today Annie is a teacher and we are the students.
We just walked into Hebrew class.

"Bara", she says and we either understand or we don't- have we been studying? Did we flip through our Hebrew sight words enough?
"Create", she continues. When God is the only subject, this is "bara".

Often times we humans think we can out-create God. As if we have outgrown Him. As if our talent is outside of Him. And when this happens, we make ourselves god- notice the little "g".
The difference is two-fold:
1- God is the only subject, meaning, we cannot do what He does. Only Him. ONLY HIM.
2- God, alone, gets the capital "G". It belongs to Him, exclusively.

Back in the late 90's I was an awkward high schooler. My grades were for crap, I didn't come from money, and my attitude needed a re-alignment. I had little aspirations for a future where college or travel may exist. But then, I cannot "bara".

I got accepted to the only college I applied to.
A car was gifted to me by someone I didn't even think cared about me.
My grades were -finally!- looking really good and hopeful.
And I traveled...up and down I-81, for an entire year as I lived in exotic Christiansburg, VA and commuted home to PA on occasion, my Switchfoot, Learning to Breath CASSETTE playing as I drove. (I could have had ZERO knowledge of the fact that, one year later, I would be driving around southern California with Switchfoot's The Beautiful Letdown, playing from that same cassette player...this time, with sand on the floor of my car.)

I could not have created with my own understandings and shortcomings what my future could possibly hold, but God -the God who "bara-s", can. 

We each have to be brave in our own ways- just as God (big G) bara-ed us to be unique, so our call to bravery is unique.

       ***********************************************************************

This is my friend, Jeff. Jeff and I were freshmen at L.I.F.E. East together, back in 2002. Jeff was smarter than the professors, which was fascinating and annoying. Once, during a HEBREW paper -where the ENTIRE PAPER was in Hebrew, Jeff found a mistake. Jeff found the professor's mistake. That's unique!

    ******************************************************************************************

Be Brave: 

In your journal, or here in the margins, list some ways your life is unique. 

What do you love? How do you like to spend your time? 

What ways do you see your life as different from anyone else's?

I love to be active and also be still. 

To have had traveled, and to travel some more. 

With my family, friends, and early mornings and all days with my Jesus. 

I got out. Out of my hometown, out of a rut, out of the trajectory of where my life was going. 

And I credit God for this, for the way He has made me, favorable and not. It all brings me back to Him.