Are You Replaceable?

“Everything in creation has its appointed painter or poet, and remains in bondage like the princess in the fairy tale ’til its appropriate liberator comes to set it free.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’ve heard it said that we are all replaceable. It’s true to a point.

Lest we get full of ourselves, it’s good to remind ourselves from time to time that it’s not all about us, we didn’t hang the moon and stars, fling the planets into place and order the universe. There is a God, and it’s not us. It doesn’t all revolve around us. We aren’t the only ones using oxygen here.

In that sense, we are replaceable.

However, we each have a unique part to play in the master plan. We have each been given an assignment. We have each been chosen in our own God-given uniqueness. Where would we be today if William Shakespeare, George Washington Carver, Guglielmo Marconi, Claude Monet and Albert Einstein had all decided they were replaceable? I think our world would be much different.

In that sense, we are not replaceable.

To resign ourselves to “replaceable” is to ignore the unique contribution we are to make on earth. It smacks of giving up. It reeks of laziness. It stinks like stale, old cowardice.

Snap out of it.

There are things that will remain undone, unless you do them. There are people looking for inspiration that only you can give. There are words to be written, songs to be sung, paintings to be painted and things to be created that are waiting for your fingerprint to make them what they should be. Without you, they will only be a shadow of what they could be.

In that sense, you are not replaceable.

It’s time to prove it.

Prove it to yourself first. Believe it. Be confident in it. Embrace it.

Then prove it to us.