In my child development class tonight we were discussing that blank memoryless time in our lives between birth and approximately 36 months. We went around the room and each person shared their very first memory. Most of the 28 students’ first memory was somehow connected to trauma. They remembered the deaths of grandparents, falling down and seriously being injured or moving to a different home, a father going off to Viet Nam. Two of them remembered a baby brother or sister joining the family. Those last two were the only pleasant memories.
While listening to them I thought of God’s first memory of us and remembered Him saying to Jeremiah in chapter one, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” That must have been a pretty heady experience for Jeremiah to hear that from God. But he shouldn’t have been to taken with his own importance because what God said about Jeremiah to Jeremiah, He can say the same for you and me.
We were not a surprise to God. We are not the product of accidental collisions between sperms and eggs. Each of us is a part of a huge cosmic plan. We are designed to fit, like a piece of a puzzle into a massive panoramic universal mural depicting the final conquest of righteousness over evil. Romans 11:29 is so exciting. Paul wrote, “God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.” So just in case you think you have drifted away and God can no longer use you, think again. He is like a relentless puzzle-putter-togetherer. I love that last word because your space in the puzzle is so unique no one else can fit in. If you aren’t in yet you will be. He’s waiting.
Written by Roger Bothwell on October 6, 2016
PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
rogerbothwell.org