Have you ever pondered your purpose, or the purpose of mankind in general?
In the good days it's much easier to get a handle of what God wants of you and from you. But when times are bad and trying, to catch a glimpse of your purpose is more of a challenge.
Look at Psalm 8:3-6 to get an idea of what King David thought in the good times. God's glory was easy to proclaim. The passage reads: “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet.”
In Job 7:16-18 we see a contrasting view expressed by Job, who was downcast and stripped of God's pleasures. Job felt like there was no hope.
The passage reads: “I hate my life and don’t want to go on living. Oh, leave me alone for my few remaining days. What are people, that you should make so much of us, that you should think of us so often? For you examine us every morning and test us every moment.”
We see that David was simply overwhelmed by the awesome, unspeakable majesty of God's glory and purpose for man. He expressed thankfulness in grateful praise to God, who created him.
How many of us have been on the mountaintop and glorifying God in the good times?
In contrast, suffering Job protested that man seems too insignificant to justify God's perpetual concern and asked God to just leave him alone in his misery.
We have to remember that in the first book of the Bible, God gave man dominion over His earthly creation—an awesome responsibility that mankind has..
We need to grasp in our hearts and minds what the glory of God really is and how we fit into that picture.
We can grab some insight about the glory of God from a sermon delivered by Professor Charles G. Finney many years ago on Dec. 20, 1843.
He stated, “Nothing can make us stable Christians, but to behold his glory, a revelation of Him to us. No excitement, no intellectual acumen, no strength of logic, nothing can secure us but a revelation of God to our souls. We should therefore persevere and insist that this be done for us, that we see God's glory, and be fixed on Him. The church should pray for ministers and for candidates for the ministry, that God would reveal to them the deep secrets of his love and mercy; that He would open to them the ever flowing fountains of exquisite and perennial blessedness to let them drink therefrom and never thirst more. O do the churches think and feel how much they can do for their ministers, by praying the heavens open, and letting down on their hearts such rays of glory as shall forever enrapture and hold them in awful apprehension of God's presence and character, as that the spirit of the Highest shall come upon them, and the power of God overshadow them, and transform them from men of clay, to angels of mercy and power to a fallen world? Why do they not pray? Brethren, why do you not pray--pray that God would show you, the community, the whole church in the land, and in the world, his glory?”
Do we possess the mindset of King David or Job? That's something to pray about.
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