As I worried about one of my friends a few nights ago, (more than normal that is) I just kept praying to God about them and for them ’cause that’s the best thing you can do, especially when there’s nothing else you can do.
And in that worrying and praying, God spoke some major truths to my heart that I had forgotten and didn’t even realize it. The back and forth of overthinking had made me just pass over the basic truths I knew so well.
They aren’t just basic, though. They’re vital. They’re vital to any person whether they believe in God or not, but they hadn’t even crossed my mind that night.
So, just in case I’m not the only one that worry has blinded, let me remind you. Let me encourage you with what God so clearly spoke to me and so clearly says in His Word over and over.
God does not forget His children. Ever.
I had let anxious thoughts about my friend overtake my mind, but then I heard God’s voice ask me such a simple question.
He said, “Do not worry. I have not forgotten about them. They are my child. Don’t you know that I take good care of My children?”
Woah. It was all I could think because how could I forget that? We were all created by God, as His children, including my friend.
And as soon as I thought that I heard God whisper something else to my heart: “Don’t you know that every breath contains purpose? Did I not say that I know the plans I have for you? As long as there is still breath, there is still a purpose.”
Every breath is filled with purpose and made possible by grace.
Although God didn’t tell me these things specifically about my own life, there are times when I have needed it, and I just know someone else needs to hear it right now, too.
So whether lately, your breaths have been caught from crying, slow from peace, or rapid because of fear and anxiety that’s constant, none of your breaths have not been planned out or known about by our Heavenly Father.
There is not a moment where you were left out by God, or His plans for you discarded.
Our God is not One that keeps going back to the drawing board, redoing and fixing your future. No. He said, “‘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'”
Before you took your first breath, before the beginning of time, He knew your future and called it good.
He didn’t stop thinking of you then either, but while Jesus Christ was on the cross, He died with you in mind to save you and to take on your sin, your pain, and all your anxieties.
He died on the cross so that you might live and carry on the purpose for which you were created so that you might wake up every day rejoicing because you serve a God Who doesn’t forget about His children.
For Isaiah 43:1 says, “But now thus says the LORD, He Who created you, O Jacob, He Who formed you, O Israel, ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are Mine.”
I don’t know whether your future seems uncertain, your purpose, distorted, or your hope feels permanently lost because of all that’s happened.
I do, however, know that everything becomes clear when we look at it through the gospel. And the gospel is this: We were created by God even though He knew we would all sin, but He still sent His Son, Jesus Christ to die a the worst death imaginable to save us. Now because of that, we have life, and this life has been given to us because the Creator of the universe loves us so very much. And there is not a price He wouldn’t pay for us, nor a moment we are not thought of by Him.
We are His, formed by Him to reflect light. That is who we are made to be.