You Are Not An Accident

This week’s study—chapter 2 of Rick Warren’s “Why On Earth Am I Here?”—makes the statement that you are not an accident, your life was planned.

If every part of your life is just as you would like it to be, it might be easy to accept that statement as true. However, if your life is not exactly as you would like, you probably responded to that statement with a lot of doubt—or at least with some questions.

Why would God, if He is good, have planned this part of my life as it is, or that part as it is? If God really loves me and planned my life, why would I have such problems with it?

Those who are often sick, have chronic problems, or have just had a sudden shock in their life (such as a death of a loved one, loss of a job, breakup of a marriage, etc.) might have special reasons to question the truth of the claim that their life was planned.

However, the point of this chapter is not to raise questions in your mind about God and His involvement in your life. It is to reassure you that regardless of the situation of your life, there is hope that things can be better than what they are because God loves you.

Having faith that your life was planned doesn’t mean you have no choices to make. Even if you have problems that are the result of your own bad choices, you can be assured that God can redeem the situation and make life different for you.

Look up the verses Warren quotes to go with the following statements. Read the verses in your version of the Bible, and see if you come to the same conclusions Warren does.

1. You are alive because God wanted to create you. (Psalm 138:8)
2. God prescribed every single detail of your body. (Psalm 139:15)
3. God was thinking of you even before he made the world. (James 1:18)
4. We discover that meaning (for our life) only when we make God the reference point of our lives. (Romans 12:3)

It would be easy to avoid the implications of this chapter by questioning each point and debating the issues of predestination and free will.

Instead, let’s just assume for a moment that we are here by God’s design and we have freedom to choose what to do in each situation.

Now answer Warren’s third question on page 16: “How would your life change if you began to live each day confidant that God loves you deeply and has a purpose for your life?”

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