Finding Your Purpose In God's Plan - Chapter 1

 

INTRODUCTION

What On Earth Are We Here For?

Your throne was established long ago;
You are from all eternity.
-Psalm 93:2

It was the intention of our Father-God that all men might find the answers to life's deepest enigmas.
-DeVern Fromke1

The inspiration for this book had its beginnings about 35 years ago when I received an unexpected gift. I was attending a leaders' conference in Herne Bay, a small seaside town in southeast England, when a man approached me at the end of the conference and gave me two books-The Ultimate Intention and Fullness of Stature-both written by DeVern Fromke. The man, known to me previously only by name, was David Lillie, who explained that the books had been freight-damaged in transit from the U.S. to England and therefore were free.

Damaged or not, those two books helped open my eyes to see that God's eternal plan-His ultimate intention-was so much more comprehensive and purposeful than saving us from our sin. In January 1999 at a conference in Bristol, where I was sharing the ministry with George Verwer of Operation Mobilization and Terry Virgo of New Frontiers, all three of us testified to the powerful influence of DeVern Fromke's writings on our lives as young men.

Not long ago, I had the pleasure of staying briefly with DeVern. As I journeyed to his home in Indianapolis, I felt the kind of excitement and anticipation that a schoolboy might experience on his way to Disneyland. I was not disappointed. He was 78 at the time, but his mind was as sharp as a 20-year-old. I make no apology for saying that much of the key teaching in this book is repackaged Ultimate Intention, and that I have included some wonderful thoughts gleaned from John Piper's books, in particular The Pleasures of God. DeVern expressed delight that I was embarking on this endeavor.

Sad to say, we live in an age where clear, theological thinking is at an all-time low. Many who occupy the pews on Sundays are interested only in messages with good entertainment value, or sermons that support their way of thinking. The apostle Paul warned against this trend: For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.2

While some attend church meetings in order to be trained and equipped for service, others sit back and wait to be entertained. If the preacher fails to hold their interest, he is thought to be speaking 'over people's heads' or considered to be just plain dull. I believe the issue today is not dull preachers but dull hearers. But that may not be a new problem. I recall the story of an old English fellow named Hodge, a 19th century hedger and ditcher, who was once heard to say, 'I likes Sunday, I do.' 'So, why do you like Sunday?' he was asked. 'Well, I likes ta go ta church an put ma feet up an think o' nothin'.'

If Hodge's problem was lethargy, ours may be distraction. We are a generation infected with the sound-bite virus, our attention span reduced to a bare minimum by the short scenes and summaries that make up today's media programming. It's almost as if we've suffered brain damage through an overexposure to news, sports and Hollywood. As such, we're addicted to the remote control and the computer mouse: if we are not being entertained, we simply switch to another channel on TV, or else put on a video or DVD, or click to another site on the Internet. With that kind of 21st century 'handicap,' is it surprising that we prefer preachers with nice, topical, three-point sermons over those who ask us to reason along with them as they expound a chapter of Scripture?

It's tempting to think of the Early Church as being somewhat illiterate. After all, they lived 2,000 years ago. Wasn't that close to the Iron Age? And don't we live in the Information Age? That may be true, but most Christians today have considerable difficulty following Paul's line of thinking in Galatians or Ephesians (not to mention Romans). It's easier to go along with majority opinion-or the latest speaker-and let others do the thinking for us. But that often leads to shallowness of conviction and unprincipled pragmatism, where we are swayed by every 'wind of doctrine' or think that the end justifies the means.

A great many Christians-especially men-will buy books at conferences but never get around to reading them. (Yes, I know, life is just too busy. Maybe we'll have time to read once things get back to normal…and so on.) My hope in writing this book is to reach not only those who are trained to handle theological arguments, but also those who may struggle with concentration or conceptual thinking. To that end, I will frequently use stories to support my train of thought (as the Bible so often does in its teaching), and I will seek to be practical in my application of truth.

Finally, I would ask you, the reader, to walk with me on a journey that stretches, in terms of biblical thought, from eternity to eternity. I hope you will persevere through the parts that may be difficult to understand. And I pray that, in some small way, God will use this effort to motivate you (in the words of Paul to the Philippians) to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of you.3

ENDNOTES
1. DeVern F. Fromke, The Ultimate Intention (Indianapolis, Indiana: Sure Foundation, 1963), 21.
2. 2 Timothy 4:3.
3. Philippians 3:12.

 

You Are Not A Mistake

Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. -King David1

I remember lying in bed one night as a ten year old, pondering one of those questions that only philosophers and children seem to ask: Why am I me and not my brother? At the time, my thoughts were limited by my ignorance of the biological facts of life, but even later, the answer remained a mystery. Half a century after those childhood reflections-after discovering a few things about my own history, and learning more about our incredible universe and the God who created it all-I am amazed that I even exist, let alone that I am me and not my brother.

During the First World War, my father led a group of snipers on the battlefield. Fighting was fierce and often at close quarters. On one occasion, while looking down the sights of his gun in order to focus on a German soldier, my father discovered the same soldier focusing on him. His opposite pulled the trigger first-and shot with perfect accuracy. But just two feet from entering my father's brain through the left eye, the bullet struck the gun sight and, with an eerie zing, ricocheted over his head.

My father was not a committed Christian at the time, but he was so shocked at how close he had come to death that he laid down his gun and had a talk with his Creator. If that bullet had found its mark, I would not be sitting here writing this book. I would never have existed.

As a teenager, my mother attended a girls' boarding school. On the school grounds were several Laburnum trees loaded with seedpods that, to my mother, looked very similar to runner beans. One fine autumn afternoon she persuaded a crowd of girls that these seedpods were quite edible, and began to pick them and hand them out to others.

Within the hour, ambulances were rushing the victims of my mother's 'good idea' to the hospital. Included in this poisoned cavalcade was my mother herself who, along with the others, managed to survive the ordeal. If Kathleen Good had died that day, I never would have been born; I wouldn't exist.

Despite all odds, I did come into existence-and proceeded to have some 'close encounters' of my own. In 1942, at the age of five, I was taken ill with appendicitis that developed into peritonitis. My mother called the family doctor who concluded that I was suffering from a simple stomach disorder. Mother, however, was convinced that this was not the case and, sensing that my life was in great danger, called another doctor.

The second doctor wasted no time. Within minutes I was rushed to Canterbury Hospital and immediately operated on. The surgeon, Dr. Beresford-Jones, later told my mother, 'Another half an hour and your son would have been dead.' If my mother had accepted the family doctor's diagnosis, I wouldn't be here. But there is one more timely aspect to this story. Apparently, I was one of the first civilians to receive penicillin; without it, I surely would have died.

 

In spite of who I am…

Given the perilous events I have just described, and the fact that I was raised in a Christian home, you might assume that I grew up with an all-pervading awareness of God and my eternal destiny in Him. The truth is, unless God had taken the initiative to confront me again and again, I shudder to think what my life would look like today.

Last year while reading in the Book of Genesis, it suddenly struck me that much of my early life corresponded to that of Jacob, especially in his tendency to manipulate and deceive. Living in a very active Christian home, I soon learned how to play the role that my parents expected of me, attending church services and even teaching Sunday School when I was only ten years old.

Sunday evenings I would travel with my father as he preached in various chapels. At first, my father got me to announce a hymn and read the first verse; later he added the reading of Scripture. When I successfully handled that, I was asked to sing a solo, and then 'graduated' to saying a prayer. All of this took up about 15 minutes of the 60-minute service, and the old folks loved it. What a wonderful thing it was to see a young boy in the pulpit with such a cherubic smile, pleasing manner and lovely singing voice!

At school, however, I was one of the gang-I needed to be 'cool.' And that, I regret to say, translated into a foul mouth and disreputable behavior like stealing cigarettes from my older brother. These I would either smoke myself or sell to one of the teachers. But that was during the week. Sunday mornings would find me pushing an elderly, wheelchair-bound Miss Shonk, accompanied by her even-more-elderly sister, Mrs. Horton, to the worship service at Hamilton Road Mission.

I would then leave the sisters and make my way to the nearby recreation ground to watch a soccer game. George McLeod, the minister, believed I went on to the church service where my parents attended, while my parents thought I stayed at the Mission with Miss Shonk. I vividly recall the many times Mr. McLeod would say, 'Barney, you are doing a great work for the Lord.' The strange thing was, I actually felt a certain self-righteous glow when he spoke those words.

Yet there was another side to me that no one knew but God. My first strong, personal awareness of God was at five years of age while being rushed to hospital with peritonitis. The second, at the age of seven, was a series of encounters when I was a student at Westbere Anglican Primary School. (Even there, I must confess to being caught playing hooky with Colin Long, my seven-year-old 'partner in crime.') Each morning, school would commence with prayer and a hymn. There was one hymn in particular that used to touch my young heart:

It is a thing most wonderful,
Almost too wonderful to me,
That God's own Son should come from Heav'n and die
To save a child like me.

Later, in verse three, I would come to the line, But 'tis more wonderful to me, my love for Him so faint and small. For some reason, I could never sing that line without choking back the tears. I knew I was undeserving of God's love, but deep, deep down inside, I also knew that I loved this God to whom we prayed and whom my parents worshiped. I asked Him into my heart innumerable times.

As a teenager, I continued to play both sides. For a school debate in which the motion formally stated, 'This house believes in the existence of Almighty God,' I spoke against the motion. I didn't believe a word of my argument, but opposing the status quo made me 'cool' in the eyes of my friends. Yet it was on days like these that I would come home from school, go to the old pedal organ in the front room, and play and sing hymns.

Again, there was one hymn that always brought me to tears: God holds the key of all unknown, and I am glad: If other hands should hold the key, or if He trusted it to me, I might be sad. Somewhere in the subterranean recesses of my soul there lurked a sense of being drawn toward the Lord, of being called to a plan and purpose that carried eternal consequence. No amount of religious performance or conformity would ever-nor could ever-satisfy that magnetic pull.

I was an enigma, full of contradictions. In effect, I was three different people: one was outwardly religious, knowing how to say the right things and act the right way to impress his parents and other church members; the second was a man of the world, deceiving and bending the rules in order to feed his pride and selfish ambitions; the third was a secret, inward Christian, thirsting for the living God and who was, at times, tender, broken and deeply ashamed.

Eventually I left home and joined the London Metropolitan Police Force as a police cadet. I was looking forward to the adventure of arresting crooks but, in retrospect, I think that God was looking forward to 'arresting' me! I liked the idea of being free from the influence of my parents, but I couldn't escape from God. As David once said, 'I can never be lost to your Spirit! I can never get away from my God!'2

Just before I left home for the big city, Mrs. Horton gave me two old-fashioned, framed Bible texts and said, 'Barney, I believe God is going to use you to bring many people to the Savior.' Little did I realize that within four months, those two texts would be hanging from my apartment wall, and (most incredible of all) within another six months, eight police cadets would have given their lives to Christ and would be meeting in my room for prayer and Bible study.

However, I had a few tough lessons to learn before those events took place. New Year's Eve 1954, two months after my arrival in London, found me the worse for alcohol-which was a new and nauseating experience. Apart from one sip of rum while playing hooky with Colin Long at age seven, I had never before tasted alcohol. Now I felt wretchedly sick. The room seemed to be rotating around me and my head was swimming. During repeated visits to the washbasin, the contents of my stomach were being vomited down the sink; I thought I was going to die.

It reminds me of Jonah's experience in the belly of the great fish and, like him, I began to call out to God for mercy. I don't remember the exact words I used, but I can strongly identify with Jonah's prayer in that awful place:

In my distress I called to the Lord,
and he answered me.
From the depths of the grave I called for help
and you listened to my cry.3

A few weeks later, in a large evangelistic meeting at London's famous Royal Albert Hall, God 'arrested' me and started me on a journey from which I've never looked back. One of my favorite Scriptures became this quote from the apostle Paul:

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of [or 'arrest'] that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.4

I wish I could say that I have always walked perfectly in this new way, but the truth is, I have often fallen short. Because of this, I frequently pray, 'Father, by whatever means You see fit, please keep me in the place where I am useful to your plans and purposes.' And He has been exceedingly gracious and faithful to answer that prayer by means of His guidance, discipline, grace and kindness. He has blessed me with a loving wife, children, grandchildren, and an extended 'church family' that stretches literally around the world.

A few months ago I was telling two of my grandchildren, nine-year-old Estee and six-year-old Samuel, the story of their Great Granddad Sydney Coombs and his dramatic escape in the First World War. Samuel loves dramatic adventure stories, and was highly animated as I told them of my father's escape that took place before I was born.

When I finished, I asked them, 'So what would have happened if the bullet had hit Great Granddad Coombs?' Immediately Samuel replied, 'You wouldn't be here.' 'And if I wasn't here, what would that mean?' I inquired. 'Mummy wouldn't be here,' Samuel responded. 'You're right!' I said to him. Then posed the next question: 'And what does that mean?' 'I wouldn't be here,' he replied confidently.

I continued, 'Sam, listen to me: You are very special; you are not a mistake. God planned you before you were born; in fact, He planned you a very long time ago, and when He planned you, He had a very special reason in His mind.' 'What was that?' Samuel inquired. 'To be honest with you, Sam, I don't know,' I responded. 'I only know He has a special purpose for each one of us, and that includes you and Estee. But if you keep talking to Him and reading the Bible, I promise you He will also talk to you and tell you what it is.'

 

God planned you from all eternity

As we look back on our lives, we see the hand of a providential God in our encounters with death and various other crises, but what about the moment life begins? The psalmist says of God, 'For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.'5 Think of it: the Creator of the universe gets personally involved in making us who we are!

To try to gain some perspective of this truth, let me give you a science fiction scenario that contrasts the vastness of creation with the intricate detail of our origin. (The concept is similar to those TV scenes where a camera-supposedly mounted on a space satellite-zooms in on planet Earth. The scene changes from Earth to a continent, then to a country, next a city, after this a road, and finally a house with someone sitting in the back yard reading a newspaper.)

Imagine that Earth is at the center of the universe, which happens to stretch about 14 billion light years across, and that another living being is standing on the last planet at the 'edge' of the universe (if such a place exists). He wants to visit the center of the universe, so, traveling at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second), he spends about seven billion years reaching our galaxy, the Milky Way.

But after winding his way through untold billions of galaxies to arrive at the Milky Way, he still has a bit of navigating to do once he reaches our little neighborhood. Let's see, which of these 400 billion stars is the one they call the Sun? he says to himself.6 As he gets closer, our cosmic visitor reaches Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to our Sun, leaving just 25,000,000,000,000 miles to go. He pauses to echo the psalmist's wonder,

'How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all.'7

Finally, the spacecraft reaches planet Earth and lands in the front garden of 7 Sundial House, Borstal Hill, Whitstable, Kent-a small, coastal town in southeast England. The year is 1937, the month is March, the date is somewhere around the 24th. Something wondrous has just taken place. A tiny sperm has entered and fused with an egg the size of a pinhead, and a new life-a person-has just been created. Sixty-four years later, that person is seated at a computer writing this book.

Several years ago National Geographic published a book called The Incredible MaMachinen which the journey of human life is portrayed in beautiful detail. It begins with the union of a man and woman, and the release of some 200 million to 500 million sperm that begin moving toward the woman's fallopian tube in order to interact with the egg. Within seconds, a million sperm may perish due to acids they encounter; the rest wriggle along at a rate equivalent to a swimmer's covering 12 yards a second.

Perils loom at every turn. White blood cells attack and destroy sperm by the millions, leaving only a few thousand to enter the uterus. Less than 500-sometimes as few as 10-will actually reach the part of the fallopian tube where the egg awaits.

Like a tiny space voyager meeting a huge planet, the sperm approaches the egg-which is, in fact, the largest of human cells: 85,000 times bigger than the sperm. Finally, in an heroic, supreme effort, one sperm will penetrate the egg and fertilization occurs. Seven to ten hours later, the egg nucleus containing the mother's DNA moves toward the sperm nucleus containing the father's DNA and the nuclei fuse. The miracle of new life has occurred: the two are now one.

What is even more astonishing is the wealth of genetic information packed into the two nuclei-considering that the 'large' egg is the size of a pinhead and the sperm is smaller by a factor of 85,000. Genetically, they each contain three billion base pairs, or the equivalent of a thousand books of 500 pages apiece. Here the numbers get truly mind-boggling. Because of the complexity of our genetic coding, the possible number of genetic combinations in egg or sperm cells produced by any single human is, according to biologists,9 incredibly vast: 26700 or 102017. To put that into perspective, the estimated number of atoms in the whole known universe is 'only' 1080 (that is, 10 followed by 80 zeroes).

Obviously, our brains are far too small to grasp the significance of such numbers. All we can do is acknowledge the awesomeness of our Creator-and appreciate the fact that He designed the absolute uniqueness of every individual.

Unlike the fictitious space visitor from the edge of the universe, God doesn't have to 'wend His way' through time and space in order to be involved at the beginning of each new life. The psalmist says, 'My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.'10 As Creator, He decided which egg would be fertilized and which one of the hundreds of millions of sperm would be successful.11 Only He knew the exact genetic code necessary to make you who you are. To put it simply, if a different 'tadpole' had won the race, you wouldn't be here. That was also true for your father, mother, grandparents, great-grandparents, and every person in every generation throughout history.

Whether our parents were planning on having a baby is not the issue. It still is God who is the giver of life, the One who chooses what genetic elements to combine to make us who we are, and the One who weaves us together in our mother's womb. As the psalmist declared,

'Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.'12

Why am I me and not my brother? Because God made a deliberate decision in accordance with His pre-ordained plan for us. He chose me to be me, my brother to be my brother, and you to be you.

---

ENDNOTES
1. Psalm 139:16.
2. Psalm 139:7 (TLB).
3. Jonah 2:2.
4. Philippians 3:12.
5. Psalm 139:13-14.
6. Scientists currently estimate the number of stars in the Milky Way at 400 billion (plus or minus 200 billion).
7. Psalm 104:24.
8. Susan Schiefelbein, The Incredible Machine (Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 1986).
9. These stupendous numbers are derived from the work of Francisco Ayala, a prominent scientist who calculated the 'average heterozygosity' of humans today.
10.Psalm 139:15.
11.Some may argue that birth resulting from incest or rape cannot possibly involve God, but that view fails to consider God's sovereign role as Creator-regardless of the means of conception on the human side. The Bible contains several examples of individuals born via a 'wrongful' relationship, yet who ended up in the ancestral line of Jesus! Our 'wantedness' or 'legitimacy' from a human standpoint has nothing to do with the fact that every human life is a person planned by God and created in His image.
12.Psalm 139:16. This wonderful truth applies even in an age of cloning and genetic engineering. Scientists may tinker with the DNA that God created, but whether an embryonic cell with a certain combination of genes actually survives and grows is still a matter of Divine determination. Even when man tries to 'play God,' our Creator always reserves the right to be God.