God's Vision For You

How to Live According to God’s Vision for You

The word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew[a] you,

before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

6 “Alas, Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”

7 But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. 8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the LORD.

9 Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your mouth. 10 See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”

11 The word of the LORD came to me: “What do you see, Jeremiah?” “I see the branch of an almond tree,” I replied. 12 The LORD said to me, “You have seen correctly, for I am watching[b] to see that my word is fulfilled.”

13 The word of the LORD came to me again: “What do you see?” “I see a pot that is boiling,” I answered. “It is tilting toward us from the north.” (Jeremiah 1:4-12)

Did you know that God, your Creator, the One who made you, has a vision for you? Some people call it destiny but in light of our today’s passage I’ll use the word ‘vision.’

Some people are living out their lives according to the vision they have for themselves, others according to the vision that others have for them, and others according to Satan’s vision for them, but today I want us to see the vision that God has for us and how to live it out.

Before we can look further into this subject, let’s consider a very important claim that God makes in verse 4 regarding our origin. It reads, “The word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

God tells Jeremiah that before He formed him in the womb He knew him (Jeremiah). God claims that He ‘formed’ Jeremiah in the womb of his mother. I don’t know if it will make a difference if you happened to know that, for a fact, God actually made you with His own hands, like He did with Adam and Eve. Would that knowledge change the view, or perspective that you have about yourself? It does with me.

Now we tend to think that God made Adam and Eve but the rest of us were just conceived in our mothers’ wombs and born into this world. Let me say that the only difference we have from Adam is that:

1) Adam was made as a mature, grown up person while we were made from a single cell and had to grow up to maturity,

2) Adam was made in the garden of Eden – because there was no woman’s womb for him to be – but we were made in in our mothers’ wombs. Nonetheless, we’ve all been made by God, whether in the womb or in the garden of Eden. This claim is repeated in Isaiah 43:1, “But now, this is what the LORD says— he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel:

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.” In this verse, the word “form” is used interchangeably with the word, “create.” It’s clear then that each one of us has been custom-made or formed by God. We have not been mass-produced by created by design.

According to Webster’s dictionary, the word “form” has the following meaning: “shape, configuration, formation, structure, construction, arrangement, appearance, exterior, outline, format, layout, design.”

So, what it means is that God configured, structured, shaped, designed me and you in the womb. He already had you in mind even before conception but when the time came for your existence, He designed you in your mother’s womb. The womb is therefore God’s factory, God’s workshop, God’s assembly line for making or designing us. We didn’t just happen to be, He had us in mind before we were born. Our parents are, regardless of who they are or what color or shape they are, just channels or instruments for His use to accomplish His purpose regarding you and me. As someone said, you were not born because your parents came together but rather your parents came together because you had to be born and your time was ready.