Known you for a long time... "How long have we known each other?" This is a question that my oldest fried and I ask each other from time to time. Jr. High School is the correct answer…but a truer answer is that we are still getting to know each other. Who has known you the longest? Parents? Relatives? Childhood friends? How well do they know you...and how well do you know them? "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you…” Jeremiah 1:5 These are the words that God speaks to Jeremiah as part of his calling to be a prophet. Before I formed you in the womb… God knew you before you existed. Let that sink in for a minute. While it may have taken time for you to come to know God, there has never been a time when God did not know you. “before you were born I consecrated you…” Not only has God known you all your life, but he has always had plans for you. Ponder that. Others in your life may have had plans for you…but God had them for you before you were born. So just what are those plans? How do we figure out what God has in mind for us? As followers of Jesus this always starts with prayer; asking God to help us know and do his will. Still, living into God’s will for us is not always easy (even if you are not called to be a prophet like Jeremiah). If you are like me, you probably wish that God would just send you the memo or put up the billboard that spells out his will for us. I have a friend who is fond of saying: “I don’t always know what God’s will is…but there are plenty of things that I know are not His will for me.” It may be as Paul says in Colossians, “that we have to put off the old self and it’s practices and put on the new self that is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” Col. 3:9-10 One thing for certain, the God who has known you all your life wants you to continue getting to know Him better. Blessings,
Matthew+ Almighty and everliving God, we humbly pray that, as your only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple, so we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts by Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP p. 239) | 
