THIS IS YOUR LIFE

I was passing through my hometown of Bartow, Florida the other day, and it occurred to me to stop by the Christian bookstore, as there was a gift I wanted to pick up.

I had been to this bookstore a couple of times in the past, and since the store owner possessed one of my family surnames, he and I had conferred on the topic. This time around I reminded Mr. R. who I was, and that we had previously discussed the prospect that we were distant relatives; (which, as it fell together, we are).

At any rate, as my cousin and I once again discussed the exact manner in which we are related, he suddenly, and without so much as thought, metamorphosed into a “This is Your Life” mode.

“Royce McDonald. Your dad was Henry McDonald. He founded ‘McDonald Exterminators.’ You attended high school in this little town, and served in the military. You have a doctorate in counseling, and you are a writer extraordinaire.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

“How do you know all that?”

(As you might expect, the obvious had somehow eluded me).

“Well, my friend, you may recall that you and I are Facebook friends. And I have read a lot of what you have written.”

My experience in the Christian bookstore serves as a word picture of how well our Lord knows and loves us.

Pt. 2

There are any number of verses which support the foregoing consideration.

In Jeremiah 1:5 we read,

"Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I set you apart…”

Psalm 31:15 informs us that,

“My times are in (God’s) hands.”

And then in Psalm 139:16 we find the amazing assurance.

“Before I ever took my first breath, You planned every day of my life.”

I often share the following concept with my counseling clients.

“If we believe that God has a plan for our lives, we are compelled to believe that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit once convened a conference in which they spoke our individual names, and decided the individual pathways they wished us to follow throughout the course of our lives on the earth.”

Speaking of “This is Your Life,” there was an old television show by that moniker, which featured Ralph Edwards as its host, and had the series included a religious theme, (which it didn’t), the foregoing scriptures might have accompanied the opening or closing credits.

The broadcast generally included a movie star or other well-known individual, and the host would introduce a number of unidentified voices from behind the curtain.

The mystery person would say something about an event which they once shared with the guest, and he or she was afforded the opportunity to identify the disembodied voice.

Afterwards

I think, we, as believers, are the featured guests in an astonishingly more crucial ‘broadcast’ of “This is Your Life,” and that we have been given the inestimable privilege of fulfilling the plans which God planned for us before He spoke the worlds and stars into place, including the wherewithal to bless, help and impact those whom He has set along our pathway.

It is comforting to realize that where ever we find ourselves in this journey we call ‘life,’ the great “I AM” of all our days, and all our ways has already been there before us paving the way ahead of us.

by William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from (Mc)Donald's Daily Diary. Vol. 91. Copyright pending

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