I love these honest words from the prophet Jeremiah, “Alas, my mother, that you gave me birth, a man with whom the whole land strives and contends! I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me.” If we would be as honest, we might admit to having these same feelings from time to time. I hear them echoed in the movie I just watched last night, the same movie I watch every year at Christmas time – It’s A Wonderful Life.
In our Bible passage, Jeremiah is whining to God about how wretched his life turned out to be. In the movie, George Bailey is whining to the angel, Clarence Odboddy A-S-2, about the same thing. Like Jeremiah, George complains that in spite of all the good things he has done for others, everyone is against him and his life is not worth living. When Clarence assures him that taking his own life is not the answer, George supposes that, “it would have been better if I had never even been born at all.”
Clarence: “What’d you say?”
George: “I said I wish I’d never been born.”
I think all of us wonder about this at some point, “What would it have been like if I had never been born?” “How would the world be any different?” Depending on how you tend to answer yourself when you ask questions like this, you might just dive into an emotional tailspin. The Bible assures us, however, that we can be confident of God’s good purpose in bringing us into this world. He has a plan for each of us.
Honestly, conception itself is such a miracle that there can be no such thing as an accidental baby. So we can encourage ourselves with this thought from Psalm 139; “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” We can be sure, God planned out every one of our days. What’s more, our lives truly do touch others for his good purpose.
Bell. Attaboy, Clarence!
