I had a very interesting discussion with my 9 year old yesterday, and after thinking about it a few times since then I have come to the conclusion that the thought he had is not unique to children.  You see, he made the bold proclamation “I am just useless”.  He repeated this statement more then once over the course of several minutes, so I made the decision we needed to discuss this.  Feeling useless can be rather devastating to ones ability to accomplish something, at the age of 9, or any age.  So that is why I decided I need to share here what I shared with him.

I said to him “God would not create anyone for no use”.  I then showed him this passage.  Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”  I know that passage is usually used to point out that all things work toward our good, but I used it to point out something different to my son.  This was how our conversation went:

Me: “Does God love you?”

Him: “yes”

Me: “Does making you useless sound like a loving thing to do?”

Him: “no——oh”

Me: “So if being useless wouldn’t be loving then you must have a purpose.”

Him: “What does that mean?”

Me:  (At this point I do not recall my exact words but this is what they meant.)  The Lord has called us to be part of His purpose-something we are to do for Him.  Even if we do not yet know what that purpose is we have one.  That means we have a use, God knows what it is even if He has not told it to us we are useful to His purposes.  By definition that means we are not useless.

Him: I see!

Me:  So Bryan if you are feeling useless that means the enemy is making you feel that way.  God would never want you to feel useless because He always has something for you to do.  The enemy simply does not want you to be listening.  If you are feeling useless you are not very likely to be listening when God asks you to do something are you?

Him:  No I guess not.

Me:  So you want to ask God to help you be listening so you will hear him.  You never know when God might ask you to do something.  Don’t be worrying about what you need to do years for now, God might ask you to do something in a few days, so you need to be listening.  If the enemy makes you feel useless so you are not listening, then the enemy might get his way.

Him:  Sometimes temptation is really hard, and listening to God is hard, but I try.

Me:  That is true for all of us Bryan, that’s why we need God.  Now, all of us have something we can be doing all of the time Bryan.  We are all useful all of the time.

Him: really?

Me:  We are to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Even when God hasn’t asked us to go do something in particular, we are always suppose to love.  So even when we think we have no use, that is something we are useful for, loving others.  That is very useful because everyone needs love.  Doing things that make others feel loved like being kind and gentle and patient with them.  We are always useful because we can always love other people.

Him:  Well I love you mommy.

Me:  I love you too Bryan.

That was the end of the conversation.  It isn’t exactly word for word but it is fairly close.  The point is we are never useless, no matter what the enemy would like us to believe.  No matter how useless we feel we have one thing we are always useful for, loving others.  Loving others is something that we can all do, something that draws others to Christ because they see Him through us because of our love.  Even when we don’t know what we are suppose to be doing for the Lord, we are always to be loving others, so we are never useless.  Never allow the enemy to tell you otherwise, he is just trying to get you to stop listening.  If we are not listening, it is likely we are not loving either.  So if you are feeling useless, go do something loving for someone, then something else loving, and I would suppose you will start feeling useful.