Okay, this may seem weird, but I use a Q-Tip as my bookmark in one of my devotional books. Most of my store-bought or gifted bookmarks are in my Bible, along with some Post-its. I don’t like to dog-ear books, especially since I read the same books repeatedly, and it just gets confusing to remember why I folded down the corner anyway. 

So, about this strange bookmark, trying to keep a Q-Tip as a bookmark has been challenging because, as we all know, Q-Tips have many purposes. Since I carry this small devo book with me pretty much everywhere I go,  I have been tempted to use my bookmark Q-Tip to clean out dusty vents in a car or to clean out the nose of a baby from church who I was holding at the time. 

The point is that I had set aside this Q-Tip for one purpose – to mark my pages in my devotional book so I could easily find my way to the next page. Instead of using it for other things, I had to remind myself that this Q-Tip had a particular purpose: to be a bookmark, regardless of what else it could do.

The same goes for all of us. Regardless of our differences, we are all set aside with one true purpose. We each have different goals, dreams, strengths, and weaknesses, but there is only one thing for which our heart screams, “Yes, this is what I was made for!”  

In Matthew 22:37, Jesus tells us our purpose and calling when he says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (NIV)

It’s so encouraging to me to know that the greatest commandment is to love God and that we all have one unified purpose, yet we are all given unique abilities and talents to be used by God for our individual paths and callings. 

Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” (NASB)

We often choose to use ourselves for things other than God’s intention, get distracted by what we want to become, or become prideful in our skills and abilities. Even as believers, we sometimes take the many gifts and talents that God has given us and waste them away or don’t use them for His glory. Although Q-Tips do have multiple purposes, if I had used this bookmark to clean out a baby’s nose or wipe away dust in a car, it would have no longer made a good bookmark and would have been thrown after I used it.  

Like how a Q-Tip probably isn’t the first thing you think of when you think of a bookmark, we may sometimes wonder why God uses us when and where he does. We may think we don’t fit where he puts us or that we could be used better elsewhere. 

Sometimes, we may doubt if God is using us for his purpose, leading to confusion and frustration. When times like these happen, we must return to why we were created- to love God with all we are! When we love and trust God, we will find hearts ready to praise him and lives prepared to be led by him.