“Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written…” (Psalm 139:16a)
I find this to be true even when I’m so far out on the edge of life, having involved myself in all the things I feel to be necessary for my moving forward. And then I get overwhelmed and miserable and despondent. The Lord is always good to bring me back to this substrate realization: He’s always known everything about me. And He loves me the same now and then and whenever I don’t feel it. He doesn’t change. Why should I?
“Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5)
While I resonate with the above words to Jeremiah, I can’t say that I feel I’m “ordained a prophet unto the nations”, but you never know. The thing about Jesus is that He calls us to greater and greater influence for Him. Things scale and grow and in light of that, all the activity I mentioned above do I seek to have grow out in that pattern. But, inevitably, I come back down to feeling weak and like everything is upon my shoulders. Here’s another verse:
“Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee: He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” (Psalm 55:22)
I know we’re doing our best. Dealing with our hangups and our sins and habits of mind and character that aren’t perfectly in keeping with the Lord Jesus Christ. But that thing that keeps us going! What is it? I would say it has to do with whatever it was that the Father wrote on your heart when He first thought you up. Think about how big a miracle it is for you to have met Jesus! Because without Him, all those words He wrote won’t amount to much. Keeping this in view is what helps the burden ease (I can feel it lessen even as I write) and what brings us back to humility. God is in control. His mercy and peace and His abundance are keeping us on the path He has for us. We can do things, of course, to help it along. But if we end up getting mired in things we had no business getting involved with, where did we go wrong? I find that meditating on the top two passages and others like them (see 2 Samuel 22:33 and Philippians 1:6) are necessary to keep in tune with the Lord. And prayer. Jesus prayed all the time and all the more when things pressed Him to breaking point. He would spend all night alone with His Father (see Luke 6:12) praying and struggling and obtaining that peace He needed to continue.
“Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do Thy will, O my God: yea, Thy law is within my heart.” (Psalm 40:7)
The writer of Hebrews quotes the psalm at length describing Christ (See Hebrews 10:7-10). The Father had a preordained path for His Son to walk in and it’s no different for us. It includes both His permissive will and His perfect will and also the unraveling of mistakes we make. God knows it all. He knew you were on your way so He made ready. This might run counter to the idea of us making ourselves ready (see Revelation 19:7) but what I mean is, the Lord knows everything about you. About me. And He loves you, wrap your mind around that and don’t forget it.