“Where are you from?” is a question we’re often asked when we first meet someone, because it gives us a context in which to begin to know them. If their response is a neighboring community our reaction would probably be entirely different than if they said a foreign land like Iran or Honduras. Our place of origin shapes us and begins to fashion our identity.
What if someone you asked that question responded by saying, “Mere chance, random selection, or an accidental ordering of elements?” What kind of significance or security would that give them, even if they happened to be the highest evolved creature around?
Now what would be the difference, if someone you asked that question responded by saying, “God”? If they truly believed their beginnings to be Divine in nature, how would that affect their approach to life? What would be the Significance of a Source like that?
Someone once said that the most comforting premise of the Christian worldview is the assurance of a beginning.
In the very first words of Scripture, “In the beginning GOD. . .” we find One Who stood at the foundation of the world, Who with wisdom, majesty, and purpose, caused life and history to begin. A Divine Reference Point from Which all of life came into being and through Whom we all find our purpose.
The Bible boldly claims that we are not lost and wandering in a cosmic circle of time and chance, isolated from any meaning beyond our own choices or random chance, but that we are a significant part of a Master-plan because there is One Who formed us in His image to express His likeness.
There was a first word, and it was uttered by One Who continues to speak–not in detached fragments but in fullness–telling us who we are, where we came from, what is wrong with us, and how we can be made whole. There is a story that emerges from the beginning, and we have a place within the whole, a meaningful place with the potential of a personal relationship with the Master Creator. In relationship with Christ we live as recipients and guardians of a way of life in which belief and practice are intertwined with history, meaning, and hope. There is an Origin to the grace we cling to; we are made whole because in Christ we are given a context, a story, a Source.
If you have submitted to that Source, be grateful for the meaning and hope that brings to your life.
If you consider your source to be something else, but would like to investigate the possibility of God being your Person of Origin, check out what He says in His Word or ask someone who knows Him, “Where are you from?”
