Don't You Want Me, Baby?

I was listening to NPR today and heard this story.  A depressed college student nearing graduation had this to say:

"It’s very disheartening to have worked so hard for four or five years and you're ready for the world and the world just kind of doesn't want you, and you kind of just don't have those options and so it's very disheartening."

Poor grammar aside, this statement sums up the way that I have been feeling recently.  The world doesn't want me.  Even though I have skills to offer, even though I have abilities that could be useful, even though I am (according to the dominant worldview) the end product of millions of years of evolution; the world doesn't want me.  As I thought and prayed about this, I realized that I was in good company; the world didn't want Jesus either.

He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Isaiah 53:2-3

Perhaps you feel this way too.  Maybe you feel like the world has no use for you.  Fortunately for us, God doesn't feel that way.  The Bible makes it clear that God sees things differently than humans do.  If you aren't very smart, if you aren't attractive, if it seems like you just can't do anything right; God can still use you.

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.
1 Corinthians 1:27-28

If you are foolish, weak and worthless in the eyes of the world, you are just the type of person that God can use.  I'm not saying that it will be easy.  I'm not saying that your purpose will be clearly marked and laid out for you.  I have struggled for 30 years to find a purpose for my life, and I'm still not certain that I have or that I ever will.  But what I am certain of is that, after this life, I will find myself in a place where my purpose is clear and certain.  I hope and pray that you will be there with me.