In Your Book Were Written the Days

Our pastor Jim Hamilton had a great sermon out of Ezra 7 this past week called Change the World: Study the Bible.  The premise was based on Ezra 7:10, which says "For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach His statutes and rules in Israel."  If you have the time to listen to it, I guarantee you'll be motivated and encouraged.  I mean, how many times have you heard a sermon out of Ezra 7?

Jim also brought out Psalm 139:16 in his sermon, which says "Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them."  Something about that verse struck me in a different way this time.  Think of it -- God had written in His book every day of my life before I'd lived one of them.  He had planned all along that Josh and I would be married, that we would have the exact jobs He has given us, that we would live where we do, that we would struggle to get pregnant, and that we would adopt our son and daughter from Africa.  Most of these things have been total surprises to me.  But God wrote them out, He formed them in advance for His glory and our good.

And He has a plan for what's to come too!  Though I have no idea how many children we'll have or where they will come from, God has determined it already.  He knows.  And so I can rest in Him without fear or concern about the future.

It's a sweet thing for me to think of God seeing my unformed substance in my mother's womb and already having formed His plans for me.  And it's sweet for me to think that He saw my son in his birth mother's womb too.  He saw my daughter in her birth mother's womb.  And He knew His plans for them.  He had written out all the days that He had formed for them already, before they'd lived one of them.

Incredible!