There’s good news, friend! Life is not a matter of chance or fate. Winning is not the equivalent of standing in front of a slot machine when you feel lucky or picking the right five or seven numbers in the lottery. Some 3,000 years ago David wrote, “My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be,” (Psalm 139:15,16). David’s contention was that even before he was born, God had a plan and a purpose for his life. A paraphrase puts it like this: “You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book!” (Psalm 139:16, Living Bible).
Show me, O LORD, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath. Psalm 39:4-5
If David was right, then God’s purpose for your life began even before you were born, and the fact that God has a plan indicates two things: no random development, and intelligent design by the creator who knows even the end of your life from the beginning. The bottom line is that, having been made in the image of God, you were created for Him, and by Him, and to fulfill His purpose. David talked about being knit together, or literally being woven together in his mother’s womb. Only in recent days have we gained a deeper understanding of what this means through scans, ultra-sounds and a variety of other tests, and an understanding of how babies develop prior to birth.
Here’s the scenario. At conception, over 200 million sperm compete with each other to fertilize an ovum as two people come together. Keep in mind that 200 million represents more than the population of most countries, but of these 200 million, only one succeeds. At conception, there is one perfect cell that begins to divide and multiply. By the time you were born, your body had 26 billion cells that made you an original, without duplication unless you should happen to be an identical twin.
When that original cell was formed, it contained 23 chromosomes from each parent—a male and a female, and these united, making you YOU. But attached to each chromosome were literally thousands of genes, only four percent of which are utilized, and these determined your genetic make-up: the color of your eyes, the texture of your skin, the frame you have, whether you are tall or short, whether you can eat anything you want in your life and always be thin or struggle with weight.
Like two giant rivers which merged, your genetic code made you the person you are, and (are you ready for this), the Bible says that all of this is not a matter of random choice but the determination of God whose plan for your life began before you were born.
The fact that God is personal and that He does have a will for you takes away the feeling that you are a mistake, a failure, an accident that shouldn’t have happened.
The implications of God having a plan for our lives are tremendous. No, you are not a mistake. No, you are not a person who should never have been born, the abortion that didn’t succeed, the offspring of someone who didn’t want to father a child.
You were created in the image of God whose vocabulary doesn’t have the word illegitimate—only child, only a son or a daughter. Because life is sacred, there are some powerful implications.
Resource reading: Psalm 139:1-24
