Jeremiah 1:4-5 (ESV) Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
It’s a hard idea to fathom, but God was orchestrating your life long before you were ever formed in your mother’s womb. In fact, before your parents ever came into existence, God was working on His plan for your life. It’s difficult for us to grasp such an idea because we view everything in the context of time, but God is from “everlasting to everlasting” (Isaiah 43:13). He is not limited by our concept of time, which means that His plans for you precede your birth.
That fact brings about good news on another level. If God had a plan for you before you were conceived, that means that He also allowed for your shortcomings. All of the things in your life that you would assume disqualify you from God’s service are actually just ingredients in the recipe that He is using to make you what He intended you to be!
It’s easy to look back over the course of your life and see all of the events that have left you damaged. Whether you were abandoned by family members, forsaken by friends or lied to by the people who were supposed to be your closest allies, your damage doesn’t disqualify you. The things in your life that you view as baggage were all recognized by God before you were born. You see, God specializes in using damaged, broken people to accomplish His will for humanity. Understanding how you can be damaged but called is the key to unlocking your role in God’s plan for your life and the lives of the people around you.
The Bible is full of God using people with baggage to perform extraordinary works. If God can use them, He can certainly use you.
Moses
The story of Moses which makes up a large part of the first five books of the Bible starts with his birth during a very dark time in Israel’s history. Israel was enslaved by the Egyptians, and the Pharaoh had put out an order that any male Jewish babies were to be executed at birth. Moses’ race put him behind the eight-ball even before he took his first breath! However, his mother sprung into action and hid him in a basket in the edge of the river when he was born in an attempt to spare his life. Who found him? The daughter of Pharoah. She took the baby in and decided to raise him as her own son. Why? Because God’s plan for Moses’ life started well before he was born. Long before there was a basket in the weeds at the river’s edge, God had a purpose for Moses’ life.
As Moses grew up, he was torn between who he was and who society labeled him as. As the adopted grandson of Pharoah, his allegiance should’ve been the Egyptians, but Moses recognized that he was Jewish. That’s why he committed a violent crime one day when he saw an Egyptian taskmaster tormenting one of the Jewish slaves.
Exodus 2:12 (ESV)
He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
That’s right; Moses committed murder. Out of fear of being caught, Moses fled into the wilderness where he spent the next 40 years hiding on the backside of a mountain carrying for his eventual father-in-law’s sheep. However, that time being a shepherd set him up to be a shepherd of God’s people.
Exodus 3 tells the story of God appearing to Moses in the burning bush. When God gave Moses His plan for his life, Moses began to make excuses, but God wasn’t interested in any of them. Instead, His purpose for Moses’ life superseded Moses’ upbringing, his crime and his wasted years hiding in the wilderness. God didn’t allow Moses’ baggage to disqualify him from service, and He won’t let yours do so either.
Ruth
While cultural times have shifted greatly over the years, it’s important to understand how life for women in the Old Testament was so different than how their lives worked today. A woman who didn’t have a husband or children was largely seen as a burden. There were no job opportunities for women and unless she had a man to take care of her, she struggled to simply survive from day to day. That’s what makes the story of Ruth so remarkable.
Shortly after Ruth’s father-in-law died, her husband and brother-in-law died as well. Under Jewish law, Ruth would have become the wife of her brother-in-law or the adopted daughter of her father-in-law, but they were gone as well. Her mother-in-law, Naomi tried to send both of her daughters-in-law back to their families and Orpah took her up on it, but Ruth insisted on staying with Naomi. With no hope of employment and an uncertain future, these two women set out for life on their own. Things were bleak to say the least.
One day when Ruth was out picking the wheat that the harvesters left behind, she caught the eye of a man named Boaz. Now, Boaz was an important man with great wealth. God had orchestrated the entire meeting because Ruth’s brokenness didn’t disqualify her from God’s plan for her life. According to society, Ruth was a castoff. A widow with no children and no father-in-law? She meant nothing to anyone on earth, but she meant everything to her Father in Heaven.
Over the course of the next couple chapters, we read about how Boaz bought the land that belonged to Naomi’s late husband. With that purchase, he also earned the right to marry Ruth. It’s easy to think that Ruth was just another Bible character who God took care of, but He did much more than that. If you glance over the genealogy that closes out the Book of Ruth, you may miss it but there is something incredible there.
Ruth 4:21
Salmon fathered Boaz, Boaz fathered Obed, Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David.
We often skip over the genealogies in the Bible because they’re not as captivating as stories of love, war, miracles and other themes. However, this one means something powerful. Ruth was the great-grandmother of David. That’s the same David who would become king over God’s people and the same David whose bloodline would produce Jesus Christ.
Ruth had every right to be broken, defeated and destroyed. After all, she lost everything. However, her steadfast loyalty to Naomi put her in the position to be spotted by Boaz. Would God have found a way to send Jesus to earth without Ruth marrying Boaz? Absolutely! But Ruth wouldn’t have got to be a part of the ancestry of the Savior.
Undoubtedly, Ruth was damaged by the loss of her husband and the uncertainty that surrounded childless widows in the Bible, but God’s plan for Ruth outweighed Ruth’s damage. God used to fruit of her marriage to Boaz to bring the Messiah into the world. If Ruth had let her damage define her, she would have gone home to her family and missed out on the opportunity to be an active participant in God’s plan for all of humanity.
We have a choice about how much our damage defines us too. While there is nothing wrong with acknowledging our hurt and our scars, we don’t have to let them define who we are. Ruth went from a widow to a direct descendent of Jesus Christ. Why? Because she submitted her damage to God and allowed Him to use it in order to put her in the position that He had for her. He can certainly do the same for you.
A Closing Prayer:
God, you are keenly aware of how damaged I am. You know my pain, my hurt, my baggage and my scars. You also know how much I want everything that You have for me. I’m asking You to use the damaged parts of my life like only You can. Allow those parts of me that I would consider disqualifying as a way to be an active participant in Your plan for me. In the name of Jesus, Amen.