July 20, 2016 - Wednesday

The word of the LORD came to me:
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I dedicated you,
a prophet to the nations I appointed you. (Jeremiah 1:4-5 NABRE)

Jeremiah had a destiny before his birth.* Other prophets, who lived many hundreds of years apart, describe the same insight. Isaiah puts it this way:

Hear me, coastlands,
listen, distant peoples.
Before birth the LORD called me,
from my mother’s womb he gave me my name. (Isaiah 49:1)

And here is how Luke describes John the Baptist:

He will be filled with the holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb,
and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. (Luke 1:15c-16)

Saint Paul, who was a sworn enemy of the first Christians describes it like this:

But when [God], who from my mother’s womb had set me apart and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him to the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult flesh and blood nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; rather, I went into Arabia and then returned to Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to confer with Cephas and remained with him for fifteen days. (Galatians 1:15-18)

And perhaps most famously, here is how King David expresses his awareness of God's life-giving creativity:

You formed my inmost being;
you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, because I am wonderfully made;
wonderful are your works!
My very self you know.
My bones are not hidden from you,
When I was being made in secret,
fashioned in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw me unformed;
in your book all are written down;
my days were shaped, before one came to be. (Psalm 139:14-16)

Purpose.

We each have a unique purpose. It is ours even before we are born! There is much to be written about destiny and also about recognizing the dignity and wholeness of human life from the moment of conception, but today, I am meditating on the simple but overwhelming idea that each of us is born with an already-planned, God-ordained purpose.

Lord, thank you for establishing my purpose for me even before I was born. My life's work has been to live out this purpose, first unknowingly then by choice. Not even aware of it, I began many years ago by seeking out my purpose.

Lord, you have blessed me by answering my prayers for guidance, direction, and insight. And your answers always lead me to live such that I give praise and glory to you by all I do, think, and say. And I am blessed by opportunities to express this purpose each moment, every day you give me. 

Lord God, thank you for a way to talk directly with you through prayer. Thank you for your Word. Thank you for your Spirit. Thank you for the unity of all things in you. And thank you especially for your son, Jesus, whose knew his purpose and lived it perfectly. 

May I live today with an even greater focus on your will, a diminished sense of my own, and the courage to accept the circumstances I will encounter supported by your grace.


Today, like yesterday, I will look to see Jesus in the face of every single person I encounter.


Saint Apollinaris, whose witness can help us make the often-small sacrifices that following Jesus today may require, pray for us.