Excuse me; have you got 5 minutes to answer a couple of questions...?

Twice in the last week I have agreed to fill out a survey. Once on the phone as I was just happy they weren’t trying to sell me Broadband; and once online. I don’t often fill them in either, usually cos they want to add me to a million mailing lists.

On both occasions at a certain stage of the survey I was told that they had filled their quota of those in my category; thanks but no thanks.

First of all, if It’s a survey how can they decide who they don’t want? Surely the whole idea is to take whatever information they get and work out the results... But my main problem with it is... am I typical? Are there lots of people in my “category”? And what IS my category anyway???

I remember all those categories that came out in the 80s the YUPPYs, the DINKs and the DINKYs. I certainly never fitted into to any of those. In fact I don’t remember EVER fitting in, to any gang or group. I’m not sporty, I’m not what you might call pretty, I was never cool, I always thought I was a social outcast! (OK that was a bit of a dramatic overstatement but you get my drift.) But now it turns out that me and my category are filling out every survey available and there are too many of us! It’s a bit tragic really!

BUT... look at these verses from Psalm 139

1 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.

And later…

13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

How many babies have been conceived in the world since it began? And these verses apply to each and every one!

It turns out that there’s only one category after all… Made by God!