Ephesians 1:4 states something that should stop us in our tracks: God “chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” Before the first word was spoken into darkness. Before the first star was set in the sky. Before you existed. You were chosen.

This is not the choosing of someone who evaluated all the options and decided you were the best of an acceptable lot. This is the choosing of a Father who wanted you — specifically, particularly, personally — before you had done anything to earn or lose that choosing.

You Were Not an Afterthought

Many of us carry, somewhere beneath the surface, a quiet fear that we are accidental — that we arrived in a world that did not particularly plan for us, and must make a case for our right to belong. The gospel demolishes this.

You were not an afterthought in the mind of God. You were a forethought. Before the problem of sin existed, the solution — Christ — was already in place, and you were already in Christ. Your belonging is not something you are working toward. It is something you are working from.

Let that reality anchor you today. You are chosen. You are wanted. You are included in the eternal plan of the God who makes no mistakes.