A devotional entry I recently read gave me reason for pause. The writer suggested that all your life could basically be training “for one moment, crisis, or opportunity.” He was trying to encourage his readers, no doubt, with the idea that “Your time will come. God will put you in the right place at the right time to fulfill His purpose and your life will suddenly be relevant!”
While well-intentioned, this message might lead some to the unfortunate conclusion that we’re only here to be used. And under this construct, once you’ve had your moment of significance, your moment of usefulness, then what? Might as well die, I guess, because you’re of no further use to God. You’ve played your note in the symphony He’s conducting and you’re done. Worse still, one receives the subtle implication that God is orchestrating every event, controlling every person… moving every pawn! 
But Jesus suggests we are much more than ignorant tools in God’s hand.
“No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends” (John 15:15).
Friends serve one another, but they don’t use one another. True friendships are bidirectional and are not formed simply as the means to an end. This life does not revolve around a moment of usefulness, but around relationship with God and others. You are always relevant, whether child, adult, or aged! There may or may not be standout moments or accomplishments in your life that people point to after the fact, but none would serve to define you or sum up your value to God or humanity.
A young lady cleaning bathrooms at the airport (where I sat the other morning) tried to help when she noticed my waiting so long for a service desk to open at 5:00 a.m. She showed kindness to a total stranger! I, in turn, asked about her, and was able to pray for her serious undiagnosed migraine-causing neurological problem. She’d had to stop attending school and had a spinal tap scheduled.
Was that mutual expression of concern a world-changing event? Not that I know of. Was it significant to God? I think so! Did He orchestrate it or did we both just open ourselves up to being kind at an hour most people slept? I don’t know. 
But I resist the idea that God is primarily interested in the show and not the actors and actresses.
The Bible tells me He cares about the details of our lives, knowing our thoughts from afar, even how many hairs are on our heads. It starts at conception (or before) and it extends through our last breath. We are never insignificant in His eyes!
