It is true for missionaries and all the people we serve: “God has a plan for your new life in Christ.” That’s an idea that we’re all familiar with. A second, more advanced, idea is this: Our identity comes from God, not from the details of God’s plan. We need to make sure we understand the difference between getting our identity from our relationship with God and getting our identity from the job God gives us.
Look at God’s plan for our lives: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph 2:10). You may remember that the word translated “workmanship” is the Greek work poiema, where we get the English word “poem.” That means you are not a random accident but an object of God’s love who exists because of God’s creative genius.
Talking to God in Psalm 139:13-14, the psalmist teaches us something of profound importance, “You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
All God’s works are magnificent.
No matter what you think of yourself and no matter what anyone else thinks of you, God says, “You are my masterpiece.” You are in a relationship with the sovereign God of creation, the universe and everyone and everything in it. Your ministry is unique to you. Your local is unique to you. No one else can be you and do what you’re doing at this time and in your special corner of the world. Rest in your relationship with God rather than the work that He has called you to.