Each of us has a destiny out there somewhere. But some people are too afraid to follow it because they compare themselves with other beautiful, talented people and come to the conclusion that they could never be as successful as them. Those people have, what I call, Ugly Duckling Syndrome.

Well here we are at the end of the week again and in fact at the end of a series of twenty programs over the last four weeks that together have made up the series that I've called Discover Your Destiny. I hope you've been able to join me on that journey over these last few weeks but if you missed any of the programs you can listen to them again online at our website www.christianityworks.com.

Now one of the reasons, one of the many reasons that people don't step out into their destiny, that yearning, that dream, that thing deep down that they know that they were made to be and to do, is that they compare themselves to other people.

Well we all do that, we all look at these talented and gifted people around us and somehow we convince ourselves that we could never be as good as them, we can never do what they can do, we can never live out our dream, our destiny. You know what I call that, I call it ugly duckling syndrome.

Hans Christian Anderson's powerful story 'The Ugly Duckling' is a literary classic. Not so much because of the way it was written, my hunch is that the piece loses some of its poetry and its lilt at having been translated into English. No the power of 'The Ugly Duckling', the thing that made it a classic is in the way that it resonates deeply with our souls.

A swan's egg by some strange set of circumstances finds itself in a ducks nest in the farmyard and so a swan is born into a family of ducks. No one really cares why or even realises that it's happened, everyone just assumed that he's meant to be a duck and all of his little life people reject him because for a duckling he is one ugly bird.

Everyone misunderstands him, everyone rejects him and it hurts, he's all alone but amidst the bleakness and the hopelessness of this world there is one thing, just one thing that makes his little spirit soar. Have a listen.

One evening just as the sun set amid radiant clouds there came a large flock of beautiful birds out of the bushes. The duckling had never seen any like them before. They were swans and they curved their graceful necks while their soft plumage shone with dazzling whiteness.

They uttered a singular cry as they spread their glorious wings and flew away from those cold regions to warmer countries across the sea. As they mounted higher and higher into the air the ugly duckling felt quite a strange sensation as he watched them. He whirled himself in the water like a wheel, he stretched out his neck towards them and uttered a cry so strange that it frightened him.

Could he ever forget those beautiful happy birds? And when at last they were out of his sight he dived under the water and rose again almost beside himself with excitement. He knew not the names of these birds nor where they had flown but he felt towards them as he never felt for any other bird in the world.

He wasn't envious of these beautiful creatures but wished to be as lovely as they were. Poor ugly creature, how gladly he would have lived even with the ducks had they only given him some encouragement.

At the moment he didn't yet know who he was, he just knew who he wanted to be but because he didn't know who he was, who God had made him to be he simply didn't have a license to go and be who he'd been made to be. And even when he finally encounters those birds again he thinks he's going to die, surely that can be the only outcome."

I will fly with those royal birds', he exclaimed, 'and they will kill me because I am so ugly and dare to approach them. But it does not matter, better to be killed by them than pecked by the ducks, beaten by the hens, pushed around by the maid who feeds the poultry or starved with hunger in the winter.

Then he flew to the water and swam towards the beautiful swans. The moment they espied the stranger they rushed to meet him with outstretched wings. 'Kill me' said the poor bird and he bent his head down to the surface of the water and awaited death.

But then something happened that changed everything in an instant.

What did he see in the clear stream below? His own image. No longer a dark grey bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck's nest in a farmyard is of no consequence to a bird if it is hatched from a swan's egg.

It's not until we really know who we are that we discover how inconsequential the distorted image that the worlds misunderstanding reflects back at us, in fact is. My friend as I meet people around the world and I've met so many, more and more as the years go by I'm so deeply impressed by the amazing abilities and talents, ideas, creativity, perspectives, motivations that are buried inside each person, each and every person who I meet.

As I have the opportunity these days to listen to what they say, read their blogs and tweets, I'm constantly amazed at the brilliance and creativity that people are capable of. That's not just other people, it's each one of us, it's you, it's me, each in our own uniquely different ways we have this capacity, this capability, this potential to do the most amazing things and to be the most amazing people.

I don't mean that we're all going to be super stars. I don't mean that we're all going to be on the world's stage or in the lime light. No, no. True greatness often lives in people whose names we'll never know, whose deeds most of us will never see but whose lives touched the hearts of others and leave a legacy of love and of service that will change another person's life forever.

Please don't fall for The Ugly Duckling thing. You are such a person, you have a future, you have a destiny, it's waiting to be lived and if you only look at yourself you'll discover abilities and talents and creativities and beauties that you never imagined possible. Just think of that little ugly duckling, he thought he was so ugly and finally when he looked in the mirror what he saw was a graceful beautiful swan.

And it's precisely this thing that God wants you to know when you set out on your journey of destiny. For as the Apostle Paul writes in the Book of Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10.

You are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do the good works which he prepared beforehand for you to walk into.

See He's already prepared the way. The good works already waiting for you on the road up ahead and He's created you as His piece of workmanship perfectly suited to the destiny to which you're called. It's about discovering that we are indeed Gods workmanship you and I.

It's about discovering who we are and what our purpose is so that we can go and walk into the good works that God prepared beforehand for us to walk into with a certainty and a quiet confidence in the knowledge that we're a perfect fit, that we're the right one for the job no matter how daunting that job may appear.

Father God We've heard your Good News; we know we've made many mistakes. We stepped out of your plan, we went our own way, each one of us in our own way knows it didn't quite work and so we want to come back and we want to discover the me You always meant us to be.

FatherThank you for Jesus. We just want to accept Him. I believe that He died for me and that He rose again. I believe that I'm forgiven because of Him and that I have eternal life because of Jesus and Father right this day, lock, stock and barrel, with everything that I am, with every hope and every dream, everything I have I step back into your plan. I give everything that I am and everything that I have to you for you to do with as you please.

Father God Thank you that you have a plan, thank you that I can come back because of Jesus and thank you Father that in that plan I'll get to know you and as I get to know you more and more and more I'll discover the person you always meant me to be.

Father We just pray all of this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.