What Was I Made For?

What am I made for? is a question that we’ve all asked ourselves at some point in our lives. It is certainly a question that Billie Eilish has asked herself as it is the name of her Academy Award winning song. Her song reflects what so many of us seem to be wondering: what are we made for?

Her chorus goes:

’Cause I, I
I don’t know how to feel
But I wanna try
I don’t know how to feel
But someday, I might
Someday, I might

Surrounded by students doing gap years in a search to “find themselves” and a wider identity crisis in our culture, we don’t know how to feel, but we hope that maybe, just maybe, someday, we might.

Maybe we could find the answer in belonging to something? Being a part of a community where we can share ourselves with those who can help us grow and flourish. Someday I might find that I belong, and then I’ll feel like I should.

Maybe we could find the answer in having human dignity and rights and treating others as though they have value as well? Humanity is the only species on the planet that fights for the rights of other people. When I fight hard and care about the sanctity of human life, then maybe I’ll feel like I should.

Maybe it has something to do with our soul, that inner spirit we have that desires a connection beyond the physical and to be in touch with the divine. Someday I might become spiritual or find God; then I’ll feel like I should.

Maybe it has something to do with being creative and influencing the world around us with something of ourselves, something that is distinctly “me.” Someday I might write that book I’ve dreamt about or do that painting or experiment with that new recipe. Someday I might do something that shows who I am, and then I’ll feel like I should.

Maybe it has something to do with all these things and more, and then I might feel like I should.

Where can we find a source or an explanation that gives us belonging, dignity, soul, and creativity? Where can begin to find an answer to the question “what was I made for”? Billie Eilish is asking the right questions but gives no direction as to where the answer may be found.

If we picked up a Bible, what answer might we find in it as what we were made for? From the very beginning of the story of the Bible we find explanations and reasons for the reality we see around us and feel inside us. In the very first chapter we read,

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen. 1:26–27)

The Bible indicates that we reflect the person who made us. We reflect that God is part of a community of the Trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit, and that God is of value—immense value—and that he is beyond the physical and that he is incredibly creative. If he were to make creatures, then wouldn’t they be like him? Wouldn’t they be made to reflect what he is like, which are these very things, and more? Indeed we do.

1. Humans have a sense of morality. We have a basic understanding of right and wrong, good and bad. That understanding isn’t always universal or acted upon in the way that we would want, but the foundational truth is that humans are born with a sense of morality. Ultimately our sense of morality comes from God, the very definition of goodness and justice.

2. Humans, reflecting the image of God, were created with a desire for community. Humans are intrinsically relational beings. We thrive on relationships with loved ones; we build friendships with new people. We do our best when we’re surrounded by people who encourage and spur us on. That’s because humanity and all of creation were born out of the perfect harmony and communion of love that has always existed in the Trinity.

3. Humans are not merely flesh and blood; we have a soul. We are spiritual beings as well as physical beings. We can relate to God. As it was once explained, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you” (Saint Augustine, Confessions).

4. Humans are creative beings. Humanity has invented some fantastic things. Huge medical advances have been made because people have created new machines, new tests, and new ways to know what is going on inside the human body. When we create, the creature reflects the image of the Creator. Even Eilish’s song and the accompanying video have a simple yet creative beauty to them.

All four of these aspects happen every day in most people’s lives. We make moral decisions daily, we interact with other people, as Christians we engage with God in prayer and study of his Word, and we create things. We reflect the God who made us.

Then when we see Jesus, the human who most reflects God, the one who is fully God and fully man, don’t we see these four aspects in him as well? We see the community Jesus built and belonged to, his relationships with the men and women who followed him, his closer twelve disciples, and then his inner three.

We see Jesus stand up for injustice and attribute dignity and worth to those who no one else treated with value. The social rejects like tax collectors, the poor, the sick, the lepers, the prostitutes.

We see the prayers, the miracles, the spiritual truths Jesus taught and see someone who is the one in whom heaven and earth meet.

We see the creativity Jesus brought to his parables, his response to questions, his plans for where he was going and what his purpose was. We see the “life” that grew in the wake of his presence and influence.

One of the final lines of Billie Eilish’s song says, “Something I’m not, but something I can be.” The Christian reality is different; it is “something I am” and “something I am becoming.” When someone turns to Christ and has God come live inside them, we can say that we have been made in the image of God to reflect all that God is and also that we are becoming more and more made in that image every day.