True significance is found in being loved by God – the ultimate Significant Other.

“By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19)”

Gotta love hippies and hippy songs. ‘Dust in the wind’ by Kansas is up there among the great hippy anthems: “Now don’t hang on, nothin’ lasts forever but the earth and sky. It slips away and all your money won’t another minute buy. Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind.”

Are we though? Do human beings have no more significance than a handful of soil? It does look like it because we all end up being nothing but dust. Hitler, Nelson Mandela, Ghandi, your great grandfather, my mother, you and me… all of us will end up the same: dust in the wind. We sure look insignificant.

But if we are nothing but dust in the wind, why do human beings act and feel as though we do have some sort of significance? Why do we write songs about being insignificant! We cull animals, we sterilise dogs and cats, but most people agree we are too significant to be treated like that. How can we be both insignificant and significant at the same time?

The Bible gives the most intellectually satisfying explanation for this paradox. We are insignificant because we were created out of the same material stuff as any other creature. We are insignificant because we all end up the same. Over time, a buried dog and a buried human being will be identical.

But we are also significant because God took us from the ground. We are the consequence of a deliberate, purposeful act by the Creator. Unlike any other creature, the Creator speaks to us and explains our origins to us. By speaking to us, God invests human beings with unique significance.

Furthermore, God did not originally create us to return to dust. Our significance can also be seen in the fact that God takes our decisions seriously. It was our decision to alienate ourselves from God that incurred the punishment of returning to dust. This is because without God all we are is dust.

Without God we lose all significance. Without God we would never have risen above dust in the first place. Without God we will return to being what we always were without Him: dust. Without God, Kansas is right: all we are is dust in the wind. Apart from God, no intellectual or emotional conjuring by philosophers, lovers, poets or scientists will ever give human beings significance. Like an image in a mirror is dependent on a real Person, so we derive all significance from God.

Astonishingly, God loved us and we were so significant to Him, He took on our biology too. God became a man and shared our ‘dust-like’ nature in order to rescue us from our mad determination to make ourselves insignificant. Unlike us, Jesus did not become dust. After dying He rose again on the third day to end this ‘return to dust’ judgement.