Known

Parents have a tendency to know what is in their kids. I remember a few months ago, we were having a family zoom call. My brother asked our parents a question about one characteristic we each had as kids that we still had as adults. My mom said something about me that I had not thought about. After she said it, I was like oh my gosh, I am like that lol. Same thing with my spiritual parents, my Pastors tend to know what’s in me long before I know it or even see it. 

We were talking last series about saying yes to God and last week we were looking at how God wants to partner with us to fulfil His purpose for us in the earth. When God asks us to do something, He already knows what He put in us. If our human parents can see things in us that we don’t even see in ourselves, how much more does our heavenly Father see and know what’s in us? After all He put it there. Long before we were born God knew us. And not just a know us as in a vague idea, but He was fully acquainted with us. 

Jeremiah 1:5 says, “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 is God speaking to Jeremiah. The word used for “knew” is the Hebrew word “yâda ‘ ” which means to know, perceive and see, to distinguish, to be acquainted with, to know by experience etc. Yâda ‘ is not just some vague knowledge the same way I know Oprah whom I have never met, no. It is being acquainted with and having constructive knowledge of. God was well acquainted with us and He could see us and He distinguished us long before we were ever in our mother’s womb. Our natural mothers are just the vessel through which we entered the world but our destiny, our purpose, our identity had already been determined before time. 

Our verse tells us that before Jeremiah was a little embryo in his mother’s womb, God knew him, had chosen him and had appointed him as a prophet. Now we read about Jeremiah in our Bibles because Jeremiah chose to partner with God’s plan for him on Earth. We have a choice. God has the blueprint for our lives but we still get to choose Him. 

Just like Jeremiah, before you were an embryo in your mother’s tummy, God knew you. He knew everything about you. He knew exactly what type of personality you would have. What you would look like- because you are created in His image, what you would be capable of and He had a plan and a purpose for you too. All we really need to do is say yes. The hard work was done long before we were born. God put in us all we would need to accomplish His purpose for us. 

Before we were born, God already had a purpose for us. I find that amazing. Our journey with God is not so we can find a purpose and ask God to pretty please find a spot to squeeze us in somewhere, no. Our journey with God is for us to discover, like Jeremiah did, what it really is that God created us to do. The closer I walk with God and the more I get to know God, the more I get to know me. The same will be true for you too. Our purpose is not found outside of God it is found in God, and we accomplish it with our yes of surrender to Him. 

Ephesians 1:11-12 says, “Through our union with Christ we too have been claimed by God as his own inheritance. Before we were even born, he gave us our destiny; that we would fulfill the plan of God who always accomplishes every purpose and plan in his heart.”

Before you were born God gave you a destiny. Our future has already been written by God. It is one where we are victorious, one where we are free, whole, restored, delivered, healed, walking in unity with Him and living our lives in and through Him. Destiny cannot be found outside of God. It can only be fully discovered and lived out in Jesus. Which is why our yes to Jesus is the biggest yes we will ever give. 

Love and blessings,

Melissa Tsingano.