Why Did God Make Me?

The short answer: God didn’t make you because He was lonely or needed anything. He made you out of love, to know Him, to reflect His goodness and to enjoy Him for ever. His glory and your deepest joy turn out to be the same thing.

It’s a question that comes at strange moments. Lying awake at 2 a.m. Staring out of a bus window. Scrolling through other people’s lives. Why am I even here? What’s the point of me?

The world gives plenty of answers. You’re here by accident. You’re here to be happy. You’re here to make your mark. The Bible gives a better one.

(Book 1 answered how to know God’s will for the big decisions in your life. This chapter goes underneath that: why you exist at all.)

Made by love

God didn’t need you. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit had perfect love and joy together before anything was made. So He didn’t create you to fill a gap. He made you the way an artist makes something beautiful, out of overflowing delight.

David wrote, “For You formed my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:13–14). Knit. Not mass-produced, not thrown together. And when God looked at the people He had made, along with everything else, He saw that “it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).

Whatever anyone has told you, you are not an accident.

Made for His glory

God speaks of “everyone called by My name and created for My glory” (Isaiah 43:7). Paul says of Jesus, “All things were created through Him and for Him” (Colossians 1:16). In heaven they sing, “You created all things; by Your will they exist and came to be” (Revelation 4:11).

That can sound selfish at first. Doesn’t God just want attention? But think about it. If God really is the best, most beautiful, most loving being there is, then the best thing He could possibly give you is Himself. A God who gave you anything less than Himself would be giving you less than the best. So when God makes you for His glory, He isn’t competing with your happiness. He’s offering it.

Made for joy

That’s why the Bible keeps putting glory and joy side by side. “You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand” (Psalm 16:11). Jesus said eternal life is this: “that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent” (John 17:3).

Over 350 years ago, a group of Christians wrote a question-and-answer guide for young people. Its first question was, “What is the chief end of man?” and its answer: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.” Not one or the other. Both, together.

Made to reflect Him

God made humans “in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule” over the earth (Genesis 1:26), and placed the first man in a garden “to cultivate and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). You were made to reflect what God is like into His world: creating, caring, building, making things grow, loving people. That means maths homework, music practice, football, cooking and helping a younger brother can all be part of what you’re for. “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

And you were made for good work that God has in mind: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life” (Ephesians 2:10).

When the purpose got lost

Sin bent all this. We started living for ourselves, and like a phone used as a doorstop, we stopped working as designed. That’s part of why life can feel empty even when it’s full. Jesus came to bring you back to what you’re for. In Him, you can know God again, and that is where the restlessness finally settles.

One last thing. God doesn’t only love the person you’ll become. Right now, as you are, “He will rejoice over you with gladness” (Zephaniah 3:17).

Think about it: If your deepest purpose is to know and enjoy God, how might that change the way you think about school, friends or your future?

Go deeper: The Key Teachings of Jonathan Edwards — an eighteenth-century pastor asks why God made anything at all and argues that God’s glory and our happiness are not rivals, because the best thing any creature can receive is God Himself. Start with chapter 3, “The End for Which God Created the World”.