Last week I gave a talk to an AWANA group to help them understand that no matter how different they feel, God made them special, with a purpose, and doesn’t make mistakes.

Podcast Audio:

People Can Do Amazing Things

Did you watch the Olympics this year? What’s your favourite sport to watch? Mine is hockey, but I watched a lot of the events this year and each one reminded me how amazing God made people. Just look at them! See how fast, and far, and high they can go. How strong they are! What they can do is truly special, truly incredible! And as amazing as these people are, they only scratch the surface of what people can do! Check out these other amazing things.

Amazing Snowmobile Flip, Amazing Trampolinist, Amazing Toaster, Amazing Stairs, Amazing Wheelchair Flip, Amazing Skateboarder, Amazing Going to Bed

More Amazingness

That’s pretty cool, but that’s not the only way that God created people to be amazing. Think of all the smart scientists who have cured diseases and made telescopes that can see to the other side of the universe. Think of the engineers who created machines that could blast a human to the moon! Maybe some of you are going to become scientists one day.

And that’s not all. Think of how amazing the people are who God created to be able to make art! Right out of their brains they can come up with movies that make people laugh and cry, sculptures from wood or stone that make people think in new ways, paintings that look like dreams or nightmares or something never seen before, they take pictures of places we’d never be able to visit, write music and create instruments that can make us feel happy or sad or excited or even concentrate better on our homework. Maybe some of you will be amazing artists one day.

Or think about the amazing writers and thinkers who help us see what’s going on in the world or explain things ways that everyone can understand. Some people are amazing thinkers who come up with mathematical formulas, hilarious jokes, write books and stories that change the world. Maybe some of will grow up to be great thinkers.

I’m also amazed by how tough God made us. Think about it — humans have the ability to live through some pretty crazy stuff. There are people living in Arctic cold and in desert heat. We build homes on land, in trees, on mountaintops, in caves, and even and floating on water. We can live without food for days. We can suffer great pain in our bodies, minds and hearts, and still keep on going! Maybe some of you will live lives where you get to use the strength of your body to help people.

God Created Us to be Amazing

Why am I telling you this? Because I want to remind you that God made you to be amazing! Genesis 1:26 says that God created us in His “image”, in His “likeness”. That means that He didn’t just build robots that do whatever He wants, but created us to be partners with Him. He gave us creative, ingenious, unique, imaginative minds… strong, delicate, graceful, careful, explosive bodies… deep, powerful emotions… and a Spirit inside of us that has an echo of the Spirit of God. People are amazing because God is amazing!

When You Don’t Feel Amazing

But what about when you don’t feel that way? Some of you might not feel very amazing right now. You’re not the biggest, or the strongest, or feel like you’re the smartest or the most helpful. You try to remember things, but you still forget. Sometimes you try things and they don’t work out. You try to make something and it doesn’t work, so you feel frustrated. Sometimes you break things accidentally. You try really hard to set the table, or help with dishes, or take care of your doll or your special toy, but it accidentally breaks. Sometimes you cry and you’re not sure why — or get really angry, more than other people and you feel embarrassed – or it seems like everyone around can do more than you and you feel left out.

Or, maybe God made you different – you need glasses, or you were born with a part of your body that doesn’t look like or work like some of your friends. Or maybe you have a hard time concentrating and homework is hard, or you are shorter or taller than other people your age.

Sometimes we don’t feel very amazing and maybe during those times you wonder why God built you that way – that maybe you were an accident, or He wasn’t trying as hard when he designed you, or that you did something wrong to deserve to be different. Do you ever feel like that? Sometimes I feel like that sometimes.

I need glasses and I’m always itchy. When I was your age I was shorter, younger, and smaller than any of my classmates. And when I grew up a bit, I had lots and lots of zits and people made fun of me. My family moved around a lot, so I didn’t have very many friends. I was a Christian and I loved computers, but no one else did, and that made it even harder to make friends. Sometimes on the way home people would throw rocks at me and call me names.

I often wondered why God built me the way He did, and sometimes I wished He would have done it differently. But today, I understand that He made me special, and I want to share with you the part of the Bible that taught me that.

God Doesn’t Make Mistakes

Psalm 139:13-16 says,

“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born.  Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”

Do you hear what God is saying in these verses? Let me tell you.

First, it says that that God designed you to be exactly the way you are and made no mistakes. He “knit [you] together” and He “saw [you] before [you were] born”. That means He put you together the same way an artist paints a picture and a scientist makes an invention. He chose every little piece of you exactly the way He wanted it. When you do something amazing, God cheers for you because He built you to do that! And when you have a tough time, God isn’t disappointed or surprised because He built you that way.

Second, it says that God made you “wonderfully complex” – that means he made you special, with millions of parts, unlike anyone else, because He wanted you to be that way. From how you brain works, to how fast you can run, to the colour of your eyes and hair, the sound of your voice, to your fingerprints and the things that make you excited – God designed every part. So, when you look at all your parts, no matter how different they are from other people, you can think “That’s there because God put it there, on purpose – and it is wonderful!”

Third, it says that God’s “workmanship is marvelous”. That means that when God looks at you He sees something He specially built with His own hands, and He think’s it’s really, really good. You’d never look at a bouquet of flowers and think, “Those all need to be exactly the same”, right? In the same way, God doesn’t want all of us to be exactly the same!

Maybe you can’t sing, or maybe you can’t jump. Maybe you can’t throw a baseball, or maybe you can’t read very well. Maybe the words on the page are all jumbled up for you, or you don’t see colours the way others do. God never ever, ever thinks, “Oops, I made a mistake! I should have done that better.” He always thinks, “My child can’t do that because I didn’t need them to. I have something else planned that’s just for them!”

How do I know? Because the Bible says, “Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” What does that mean? That God knows exactly what your whole life is going to be like.

Before you were born, God knew exactly how long you would live, what you would look like, gave you the parents and family you have, knew every tear you would cry, everything you would build, every good deed you would do, and every sin you would commit. He knows you better than anyone, and He loves you, very, very much.

How We Should Live

So, knowing that… let me share with you a few things to remember:

1. Know that Everyone is Special. Every baby in every mommy’s tummy is special. Every old person, even when they are tired or sick, is special. Every person is special – even the ones that are mean or rude. Even if they aren’t listening to God, since God made them, they are still special and deserve our love.

This also reminds you that no matter what, you are special too. You are deeply loved. Not because of anything that you do, or any good deed, but even when you were a baby, God loved you very, very much.

2. We should listen to our Creator. If you make up a game, and you write all the rules, then people should listen to you when you tell them how to play it, right? If you make a piece of art, then you know which way it hangs on the wall, right?

It’s the same with God. If God knows us best, loves us most, and has the perfect plan for our life, then it only makes sense to listen to Him, right? That’s why we need to read His book, the Bible. That’s why we need to talk to Him all the time. That’s why we spend time with people in His Church. So that we can hear what God wants to say to us.

3. We should Give our life to Jesus. People are amazing. And we are all pretty amazing when we are born, but God says we have a sin problem. When we are born, we don’t have everything we need to be who God wanted us to be.

So in order to fix that, we need to know Jesus. We need to ask forgiveness for all the times that we have gone against what God wanted, against who God created us to be – and God promises that because of what Jesus did on the cross for us, that He will forgive us. Jesus was extra-super-amazingly-perfect and He never sinned! He obeyed God perfectly, every day. And that means only He could take the punishment for our sin – He didn’t have any! He makes it so that we can get back together with God.

And when we ask His forgiveness for all our sin, and make Jesus our Lord (which means our Boss), then He comes and lives in our hearts, guides us, teaches us and helps us be the amazing person He created us to be.