I love old stuff. I love old wood that is seasoned with history. I especially love old tables and the stories I imagine they would share with me. I wonder what conversations happened over them. I wonder about the children and the mothers and fathers that shared meals on its sacred planks.
Actually, I am sitting right now at my grandmothers dining room table that she got when my dad was just a boy. I feel connected to her when I sit here. There is something grounding about knowing where I came from. There is something that defines me in knowing her.
I worry that we have become a people who don’t care where we came from.
We don’t know the joys and the heartbreaks that shaped our parents. We spend little time savoring the tales of our grandparents. We don’t even know the names of our great-grandparents.
We think we are smarter, more evolved perhaps, than the generations before us and we lose their wisdom. We are ignorant of their accomplishments and contributions. We wonder aimlessly in our advancement not realizing how much we have lost.
So who are you? Where did you come from? Who are your people?
You were created by the Most High.
My greatest fear is that this truth is becoming dimmer every day. There is a holy book whose ancient pages tell you where you came from. You, my dear, came from God.
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. Psalm 139:13-14
You were lost.
This marvelous, loving, holy God created you. But just like me, you betrayed him. You sought your own path. You did it your way. You forsook his ways. You sinned.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23
You were found.
You break the laws of your government and you must be punished. You turn your back on your family and they disown you. You sin against this majestic God and sends his only Son to find you, rescue you and pay the penalty for your sins.
He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God. Ephesians 5:2
There is plan for you.
He made you and gave everything he had to keep you. He dreams of your future. He longs for you to fulfill all the impossibles that me made possible in you.
For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11
Will you follow it?
The choice is your. You see this God who craves your affection also doesn’t demand it. He simply asks for it. Will you love him? Will follow him? Will you discover who you are and your potential in him?
Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. Ephesians 5:1-2
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