BEFORE You Were Born, God Knew Your Destiny. Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations. Jeremiah:1:5 * I formed you. *I knew you. *I sanctified You. *I ordained you.

When the Lord told Jeremiah he was ordained to be a prophet to the nations, he might have wondered if God had really thought this thing though!   He began offering  reasons why he wasn’t qualified to fulfill the destiny God had for him.  ” Ah, Lord God!  Behold, I cannot speak for I am a youth” (Jeremiah 1:6)

But God knew exactly what He was doing.  As the call itself indicates, He had through it through quite thoroughly:   ” This is no spontaneous decision on My part, Jeremiah.  Don’t  you realize that I knew everything about you wile your mother was still carrying you? Don’t you realize I have had this destiny mapped out for you all along.”

God had; planned tor this moment; and with joy, He looked forward to the deep satisfaction of seeing His child put to use the gifts that were so lovingly reserved for him.  When  Jeremiah protested his youthful inexperience,   God reassured him: “I am with you to deliver you”( v.8).  He put His hand on Jeremiah’s lips and said, “Behold I have put My words in your mouth (v.9) .

Just as He did with Jeremiah, God treasures the moments in which He sees us growing into what He designed us to be and moving toward the destiny He has planned for us.  The same is true in human relationships.  John Ortberg  “If I love someone, it means I have certain hopes and intentions and wishes for them.  I’m in their corner.  I long for them to flourish and blossom .  I want them to realize all their potential.  I want them to become filled with virtue and moral beauty.”

The difference is that with God’s love, these treasures exist before we do.  He has reserved them for us from the very beginning .  Paul speaks of this eternal knowledge and love of God  when he writes to the Galatians  about his own calling.  He explains that God “separated  me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles” (Galatians   1:15-16a).