Discover your uniqueness

It is the story of the Wemmicks, a small tribe of wooden dolls created by a wood carver. The main activity of the Wemmicks is to give each other stars for success, cleverness or beauty, or gray dots for clumsiness and ugliness. Punchinello is one of the wooden dolls that always only wore gray dots. Punchinello goes through life sorrowfully until one day he meets Lucia, who has neither stars nor points, but is happy. Punchinello wants to know why Lucia is so different. She tells him about Eli, the wood carver who made all the Wemmicks. She often visits Eli in his workshop and feels happy and secure in his presence.

So Punchinello makes his way to Eli. When he enters his house and looks up at the large work table where Eli is working, he feels so small and unimportant that he wants to quietly slip away. Then Eli calls him by name, picks him up and carefully places him on his work table. Punchinello complains to him: Why have you made me so ordinary? I'm clumsy, my wood is rough and colorless. Only the special ones get the stars. Then Eli answers: You are special to me. You are unique because I made you, and I don't make mistakes. I love you like you are. I still have a lot to do with you. I want to give you a heart like mine. Punchinello runs home full of joy at the realization that Eli loves him just the way he is and that he is valuable in his eyes. When he reaches his house, he notices that the gray spots have fallen away from him.

No matter how the world sees you, God loves you just as you are. But he loves you too much to leave you like that. This is the message that is clear in the children's book, that a person's worth is not determined by other people, but by their Creator, and how important it is not to be influenced by others.

Do you sometimes feel like Punchinello? Are you dissatisfied with your appearance? Are you unhappy at work because you lack recognition or praise? Are you striving in vain for success or a prestigious position? When we are troubled, like Punchinello, we too can go to our Creator and lament our perceived suffering. For most of His children are not among the noble, successful, and powerful of the world. There is a reason for this. God makes no mistakes. I have learned that He knows what is good for me. Let us look in the Bible to see what God wants to tell us, how He comforts us, how He admonishes us, and what is important to Him: “He chose the things despised and rejected by the world and appointed them to nullify the things of the world, so that no one would ever boast before God.” (1. Kor 1,27-28).

Before we despair, let us remember that God loves us despite everything and how important we are to him. He reveals his love to us: “For in Christ he chose us before the creation of the world to live holy and blameless lives in his presence and to be filled with his love. From the very beginning he predestined us to become sons and daughters through Jesus Christ, according to his plan.” (Eph 1,4-5).

Our human nature strives for success, prestige, recognition, beauty, wealth and power. Some people spend their lives trying to gain approval from their parents, others want to be approved by their children or their spouse or by work colleagues.

Some strive for success and prestige in their career, others strive for beauty or power. Power is not only exercised by politicians and the rich. The desire for power over other people can creep into each of us: be it over our children, over our spouse, over our parents or over our work colleagues.

Vanity and craving for recognition

In Jakobus 2,1 and 4 God warns us against the mistake of allowing ourselves to be blinded by the appearance of another person: «Dear brothers and sisters! You believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom alone belongs all glory. Then don't let people's rank and reputation impress you! ... Didn't you apply double standards and let your judgment be guided by human vanity?"
God warns us against worldly pursuits: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.” (1. Joh 2,15-16).

We can also encounter these secular standards in Christian communities. In the letter of James we read how problems arose between rich and poor in the churches of that time, so we also find worldly standards in today's churches, such as the reputation of the person, talented members who are preferred, and pastors who like to have power over "their Herd» exercise. We are all human and are influenced to a greater or lesser extent by our society.

Therefore, we are warned to turn away from this and walk in the footsteps of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We are to see our neighbor as God sees them. God shows us how fleeting earthly possessions are and immediately encourages the poor: “The poor among you should rejoice that they are highly regarded in God’s sight. But the rich should never forget how little their earthly possessions count in God’s sight. Like a flower of the field, they and their riches will pass away.” (Jak 1,9-10).

A new heart

The new heart and mind that God creates in us through Jesus Christ recognize the futility and transience of worldly pursuits. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Hes 36,26).
Like Solomon, we recognize that “everything is vain and chasing after the wind.” Our old person and his pursuit of transient values ​​makes us either vain if we are special or unhappy if we do not achieve our goals and desires.

What is God looking at?

What matters to God is humility! A quality that people don't usually strive for: "Do not look at his appearance or his stature; I have rejected him. For the Lord does not look as man does: Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." (1. Sam 16,7).

God does not look at outward appearances, he sees inner attitudes: “But I look on the afflicted and the contrite in spirit, who trembles at my word.” (Jes 66,2).

God encourages us and shows us the true meaning of our lives, an eternal life, so that we do not judge our abilities and gifts, nor the lack of certain talents, by the standards of worldly transience, but rather view them in a higher, imperishable light. Of course, it is not wrong to acquire knowledge, do good work, or strive for perfection. The questions we should ask ourselves are: What is my motive? Is what I am doing for God's glory or for my own? Am I receiving recognition for what I am doing, or am I praising God with it? Should we, like Punchinello, yearn for a star, we can find a way to achieve this in God's Word. God wants us to shine like the stars: "In everything you do, keep from nitpicking and being argumentative. For your lives should be pure and blameless. Then you, as exemplary children of God, will shine like stars in the night in this corrupt and dark world." (Phil 2,14-15).

I recently saw a beautiful animal film about a family of lions. The dubbing was very well done, making you think the animals were talking. In one scene, the mother lion and her cubs look up at the beautiful starry sky and the mother says proudly: "Individually we glitter, but in a pack we shine like the stars." Because of our natural gifts we may glitter as individuals, but through Jesus Christ we shine like the stars, and like Punchinello, our gray spots fall away.

by Christine Joosten

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