Food For Thought #2 Why I exist

Speaking to a friend of mine last evening at the Cheese Factory in Waikiki, I related to him the story of my speculating about the fact that my existence as I explored it in Food for Thought number #1. He made me realize that thinking about my existence as if I was a soul wandering in time waiting for God to infuse my soul into parents at a different time is in reality a result of my not understanding the essence of God.

God is. God exists.  God exists in eternity. We exist in time. God created man, both male and female. We cannot say that God created us at a particular time. That would be saying that God is subject to time. But God creates time. In my simplistic view of God's plan in creating man, I view time as a kind of capsule in which God, in eternity, sees all his creation within that capsule from its beginning to its end, as if we were to think of it as one moment. He sees his creation of man within this capsule, created in His own Image and likeness.  They have free will as He does.  He assigns them with a mission, and asks them to use that gift of free will to cooperate with His plan to accomplish that mission.

There are no free souls, sort of floating around in time, waiting for their parents to choose them. God sees all choices of parents.  The choice of humans, as parents, to freely choose to have children infused with souls is all part of God's plan, in allowing humans to freely choose to have children or not. God simply allows his human beings to make choices and that is within God's plan for humankind.

Thus when I wonder at my particular existence, I must see it as a result of God's plan, with the cooperation of generations of parents having made their particular choices in conformity with God's plan. I certainly may wonder at my existence, but to worry about possibly being created at a different time, in a different age, is in reality to diminish God and his plan for me to exist starting at the moment he has planned through the cooperation of my parents, in all eternity.  

What I must do in my joyous reflection upon my existence is to thank God for creating me, and not only thank him, but endeavor, with all the gifts that God has given me, to search for that particular mission for which God has created me; and to accomplish that mission through my grateful love for my creator, with my willingness to accomplish everything God has created me for and to help other human beings to do likewise.

But what is that mission and how do I find it out? That is certainly food for thought and such thought is the most important endeavor each of us has throughout our lives.   This will be the subject of Food for Thought #3.