Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…(Isaiah 1:5a)
These words are too much for me to fathom – impossible for me to grasp. Before He formed me in the womb, He knew me.
Knowledge implies intimacy. You don’t love someone you don’t know.
I go on to read before you were born I set you apart…
I bow down in awe. In silence I sit in His presence and yielding to the truth: To be set apart means purpose – an established plan. He has plans for me.
I believe He speaks these words to yielded hearts everywhere. I imagine there are abundant plans and blue prints ready for execution - people and events moving to the rhythm of His will.
Who is rescued from the grasp of death?
Who is held back from staggering toward the slaughter?
Who is saved?
Here is the lesson of yielding and relinquishing all rights to self. He says He sets us apart. Why would He set us apart unless He had plans for us?
Plans are worthless unless they’re developed intelligently, coordinated adequately and established thoroughly. But without implementation and cooperation nothing is accomplished. Plans are no more than the paper they’re written on, if nothing is done. Everything falls apart without yielding.
If He has set us apart for His good purposes and we’re out of His will, then someone has moved. The move away from His will is disastrous – it is dangerous to the soul.
How many of God’s plans are aborted for lack of trust?
How much would have been accomplished for lack of cooperation?
How do I move back?
Because of His great love for us, the move is as easy as placing our hands in the hands of the Master Planner.
Yielded now, I stay in this planned place, trusting Him to hold, support and move me in the right direction – His direction. I don’t trust myself. I am afraid I will move again. How can I do anything in my own strength?
He responds and floods my soul with peace whispering these words of wisdom: For it is God who works in you to will and act according to His good purposes (Philippians 2:13)
He knows us, sets us apart and has plans, perfect plans for us. To know Him is to love Him. To love Him is to trust Him. To trust Him is to obey. In the obeying the adventure begins.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)
