YOUR HEAVENLY STORY
BLOG #26
“…My times are in Your Hands….” Psalm 31:15
“Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.” Psalm 139:16
This Psalm is loaded with many truths about our Creator God. Let’s mine it for just a few nuggets of truth. The first and foundational truth is: You were created by God. Truth is, you were created by God on purpose, with purpose; and for purpose. YOU ARE NO ACCIDENT!
He said “I knew you in your mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139) He also said that He conceived you from the foundation of the world.” (Psalm 139) Regardless of how you got here, know that to God you are not an accident. God makes no mistakes. He never has and He never will. Look around you, creation shouts His perfection in numerous ways. Below are just a few of them:
- Consider the earth in perfect rotation around the sun;
- Consider the caterpillar’s transformation to a butterfly;
- Consider the mighty oak tree from a tiny seed;
- Consider the waves upon the shore;
- Consider the miracle of conception and birth;
- Consider you …now ~ today…..This is not happenstance.
So, let’s end the debate about your existence. You were created by God, on purpose, with purpose and for purpose. This is fact and truth not fiction. There are exceptional scientific books written on this topic. Research and you will be amazed at the historical evidence to validate God’s creation and refute the ‘theory’ of evolution.
God also tells us through the Psalmist David that “….Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed. And in Your book they were all written. The days fashioned for me when as yet none of them were written….” (Psalm 139:16) God has already written your story….Your biography on earth as it was planned in heaven before you were conceived.
You have a story that is already written – In Heaven – By God. My friend, regardless of where you are today, your story is not over! Here is where I want to shout a ‘Hallelujah!’ The God who sees “the end from the beginning” (Isaiah 46:10) already knows your story. He knows how your story will end. And He said that He ‘will make all things beautiful in its time.’ (Ecc 3:11) God, and God alone “has numbered your days.” (Daniel 5:26) He has written your story in His book. In that book He wrote about things before they came to past and things that are yet to come. Oh! He knows what He is writing in the pages of your life and we must TRUST Him.
He knows the times and seasons of your life. He knows what He is doing in, through, and with us. “Eyes have not seen, nor have ears heard the things that God has prepared for those who love Him.” (1Corinthians 2:9) What He is doing in you and me NOW is not for us to completely understand. But know this, He shallcause “…all things to work together for good to those who love the Lord and who are called according to His purposes.” (Rom 8:28) Nothing, absolutely nothing, falls outside His purposes for us.
I can almost hear your questions and I have some as well….
- Are you telling me that God planned and caused my pain and suffering for His purposes?
- Are you telling me that God allowed me to be ________ (you fill in the blank) for His purposes?
- What about the innocent victims of abuse, pain, suffering, and death….
- What are you saying, that God wrote all these negative experiences in my book before I was even born? (Psalm 139-16). If this is the case, then I don’t want to know this God.
And neither do I ~ but here is the God I delight in knowing. Will you journey with me to the beginning, to Genesis, in a garden where it all began?
“In the beginning God created…..And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being….The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2
So what does this have to do with us today? EVERYTHING
You are special! Made in the image of God who breathe His Spirit into you and then you became a living being. This is what separates you from the animal kingdom. And with the breath of His Spirit, you received the ability to choose; a free will that God honors and respects. Breathing His Spirit into you and giving you a free will is His choice and He will not violate His choice. God created you in His image: To Choose His Love; and To Love.
Love is stamped in your DNA. Just look around you today and through history. There are more books, songs, poems, movies, etc., written about love than any other subject. We are consumed with Love…which was and still is God’s plan and desire for you. There is so much more to be said about this topic and there are many wonderful resources about God’s love for you.
But for now, our focus is on God breathing His Spirit into you ~ creating a garden for you, desiring to walk with you, to love you and for you to love Him in return…….Read Genesis and see it for yourself.
There is always a ‘BUT’ and there was a big one in this paradise garden. This love that He stamped in your DNA must be voluntary love. You must exercise your free will to choose love – to choose God. He will have it no other way.
Mandatory or required love is not love at all. The very nature of love is voluntary. It must be freely given….and freely received. We know (or should know) that we cannot force anyone to love us, nor can anyone force us to love them. This is the priceless treasure of love.
We see this in John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whosoever should believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” It’s all about your choice to love God and to receive His love. We are familiar with this simple concept. You may understand the rejection of loving someone who does not love you in return. You may also understand someone loving you but you don’t love them in return. This is not a new choice. It first began in a garden paradise, in Heaven. And in that garden God gave Adam and Eve the same choice – to choose Him, to choose His Plan for them. He therefore put two trees in the middle of the garden as a means of choice for Adam and Eve.
(A short digression – I’ve often wondered why the middle of the garden. Why not hide the tree of knowledge of good and evil at the south end behind the poison ivy, rose bushes and between the alligator swamp and snake pit. Why did He make this choice so easy? How many times did Adam and Eve walk by these trees before exercising their choice to disobey?)
Even though the choice was about a tree and fruit, their real choice was obeying and choosing God’s love, His way ~ His plan. We know the rest of the story. They chose to know good and evil, and now we do as well. Not only do we know good and evil, but we experience it.
Daily we exercise our choice between good and evil and unfortunately the choices we make impact others, and other people’s choices impact us. My friend, this was never God’s plan for us! This is not what He had written on the pages of your life. Jeremiah 29:11 gives us a glimpse of God’s plans for us: “Plans for good and not for evil, plans to prosper us, plans to give us a hope a future.”
Thank God that the story doesn’t end with our ancestors’ choice in that garden to know good and evil. This amazing, wonderful God who defies description, knew this would happen. He was not at all surprised by Adam and Eve’s free will choice (Remember, love must be a free choice or it’s not love) and was ready with a plan ~ Covering Adam and Eve’s disobedience/sin by the shedding of blood. And He continues to cover our disobedient choices, our sin, today with the blood of His Son. WHY? LOVE.
He’s madly in love with you my friend. And He wants you to know Him and to know His love for you which cannot be seen more clearly than in the Cross of Jesus Christ. Getting back to our questions:
- Are you telling me that God planned and caused my pain and suffering for His purposes?
- Are you telling me that God allowed me to be ________ for His purposes?
- What about the innocent victims of abuse, pain, suffering, and death….What are you saying, that God wrote all these negative experiences in my book before I was even born? (Psalm 139-16)
This was never God’s plan! He weeps with us over our knowledge of good and evil. Evil men and women make their own evil choices that impact our lives. He hates evil. He’s reaching out to you, today, with the blood of His Son, inviting you to once again choose Him ~ choose His love ~ choose His plan for your life. Jesus taught us to pray this in Matthew 6:9 “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” He invites you today to choose His will. The story that God wrote when His
“….. eyes saw your substance, being yet unformed.
And in His book they were written,
The days fashioned for you,
When as yet there were none of them.” Paraphrase Psalm 139:16
God has given you the gift of “Time” today – now – to choose Him. My prayer is that you choose Him today. That you seek Him as the woman in one of Jesus’ parables who swept the house seeking for a lost coin and would not stop until she found it. Like the man who searched for the pearl of great price. The good news is that He is near and His desire is for you to know Him, to choose Him. He has already chosen you.
Shalom