The fact that we exist at all should be the first hint that we are loved.

I sat playing the piano the other day, playing a simple chord progression and singing through John 1:1-4 (and other related passages) and came to the part that says, “All things were made through HIM and without Him nothing was made that was made”.

It sounds simple enough. I’m sure most of us have heard the verse before. We get the concept. But what I was struck by as I sang was that I didn’t create me. Sometimes we get so lost in our own heads, we’re busy building our own lives, and we forget that us being here wasn’t even our own idea. So often I try to plan out my life and make it be something amazing, but even then I’m operating on the premise that I had anything to do with me being born in the first place.

I didn’t choose to be here. I didn’t decide to live in this generation, to be put in the family I’m in, to have my grandpa’s eyes or to posses the qualities and characteristics that make up who I am. As I sang in the practice room I settled on a little chorus, “I’m not here by my own plan, not by my own design, I was the dream of your heart”.

Colossians 1:16 says that Jesus created all things, both in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. If I really believe that then I have to agree that He made me. The God who stretched out the heavens also stretched out the fabric of my soul. He fashions the hearts of men individually (Ps. 33:15).

The very breath in my lungs should testify to my soul that I am loved. I’m not here by my own design, yet here I am. To be created affirms there was a creator. I was created by someone and it was by His will (the same Greek word for desire) and for His pleasure that I exist (Rev. 4:11).