A lot of times I wonder, why can’t I just be normal like everyone else? Why does it seem like my mind is on a different frequency than everyone else? Why does no one understand my thought process? I used to get so worked up over what other people had to say about my “different” personality until I realized that I did not fit in because I was not meant to fit in. I was made to be different, I was Set Apart!
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I set you apart, I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5
This is my favorite verse in the bible! If anyone thought that being here was a mistake, they should not after reading this verse. God had you in mind and had a plan ready for you before your existence! What a mighty God we serve! Before we had a name, before we appeared on a sonogram, and before the existence of our parents, He had a plan for us. For it says,“For I know the plans I have for you declares the lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you hope and a future.” So I just want to break this verse down in parts.I put an emphasis on the “I’s” in this verse because it just kept jumping out at me. The ‘You’s” are italicized for emphasis as well. All the “I’s” are always before the “you’s” and when a “you” is before the I, it says “BEFORE you..I” So, God is showing us indirectly here that his will always comes BEFORE ours. His desires and wants for our lives come before our own motives, or at least it should.
(1) The verse starts off, “Before I formed you…” not when your parents decided to have a child. Not when you were thoughts in your mothers mind. Not before your parents got married or didn’t get married. Here God is already letting you know that he is at the beginning of ALL things. He’s letting you know that it does not matter from where you came physically, or what “natural” situation you were brought into. You came from HIM.
(2) “…I knew you.” Before you got a reputation, good or bad, before you developed that personality, God KNEW your character and everything about you. So if you get all worked up about other people’s opinions of you that are false you can rest assured that God knows you and he’s the only person you should be worried about pleasing.
(3) “…I set you apart.” It does not matter what you were/are labeled as in society’s eyes, what the statistics say you should be able to do or how you will end up, HE set you apart to be about him and his business, everything else is trivial compared to that task. He set you apart to be above and NOT below, the HEAD and not the tail, to be MORE THAN a conqueror!
(4) “I appointed you.” Here he gives you a position, duty, a task that was not created by man and that no man can take away. HE appointed you. HE is your boss, the supervisor, manager, and foreman, what have you. You were chosen because there’s something he “KNEW” existed in you before you ever existed. You could reach people out there who are untouchable by someone else.
(5) “…as prophet to the nations.” So not only does he tell you where you come from, gives you a position, now he is telling you what your job is. You were set apart to witness to the NATIONS about him. He didn’t say “your town” “your city, state or block.” He said “nations” we were called into the ministry of reconciliation, to bring man BACK to the place he should have never left, to have the mind of Christ that should have never been lost. 1 Corinthians 2:16
So many people are consumed by the thoughts of man about them, that they will always miss the bigger picture. We were made, “for him and by him… he is before ALL things and IN him all things hold together.” If you have ever been called, “weird, abnormal, or whatever,” just know that 1. being “normal” is vastly overrated and the job we were called to do does not require a “normal” being and 2. REJOICE! because you have been SET APART to do the works of our father. John 14:12
Ps. be on the lookout for Set Apart pt.2, were going to tell you what’s next!
-Be Blessed
Starving Christians 