Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee,

This morning as I sit here with my laptop looking out the window at the Catskills I felt God was trying to tell me something  Suddenly I saw some leaves float to the ground. I thought it was a little early for the leaves to be falling.  As I sat watching three or four leaves fall gracefully, almost poetically to the ground, I began to think how it was only God and I who watched those leaves gracefully float to the ground. No one else in the world saw those leaves fall to the ground in its showcase of color.

As I experience the unspeakable joy of the Lord during this time of silence, I find a longing to just share this experience. So I sit here just writing about it hoping that maybe someone will read it, which is you, hoping that maybe you might experience just a glimpse of the glory and beauty of the God we love and share.

You see, on my way to the Catskills I stopped off to take a brief tour of  the home of Washington Irving near Sleepy Hollow.  At the end of the tour the tour guide invited anyone who wanted, to stay behind and sit on a bench outside Washing Irving’s home overlooking the Hudson River.  I mean what writer would not jump at the opportunity to spend a few moments outside the home of one of American’s most classic writers and observe the scenes that inspired his writings.  Yet, as I sat outside Washington Irving’s home sitting on a bench that he may have sat on two hundred years ago looking out over  the Hudson River I came to realize that the pleasure of that moment was not as enjoyable alone than if it were shared with another person.  If we are made in the image of God, perhaps He is not that much different than us in our desire to share something beautiful and glorious. Maybe that is why God has brought me up here to the Catskills. He just wants to show off a little and have someone around to share in the beauty of his Creation as it goes through the season of change from green to a glorious kaleidoscope of color. Maybe He just wants to sit with someone, someone that He loves and will love Him in return and together just watch a few leaves flutter to the ground.

More leaves are falling now, sometimes the leaves fall gracefully, sometimes comically, some fall when the winds blow and seem to chase after each other as if they were in a race to see who makes it to the ground first.  Some just plop right down in front of you. Yet each one does a little dance as if walking across the runway of a fashion show giving you a full display of their wonderful colors.

Now even more leaves are falling, they are coming down faster and in greater number building up to a great crescendo  and God and I delighting in each one, laughing, oohing and aahing at it’s beauty.  A few weeks ago I observed a fireworks display created by man.  Man can create a fireworks display that hundreds, yea thousands will crowd together to watch, yet God puts on this display even more beautiful and it is just Him and I  watching.

I thought of Jeremiah where God said that before he even formed him in the belly.  That word for formed is yatsar which is a word used for a potter who forms a vessel of clay. This is not mass production, cookie punching, little houses on hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky, little boxes and they are all made just the same.  Each person is individually made, each of the six billion individuals are handcrafted by the master potter, made at the master potter’s desire and to His personal liking and pleasure. Yet, in the Hebrew text that word yatsar (formed) is repeated twice.  This is done to emphasize, to make sure you notice and be particularly  aware that you are custom built, specifically made for His pleasure.

I think how when I am driving my disability bus in the morning and I see little scholars going to school, hundreds of them, yea, millions upon millions of them in the entire world. They all look the same to me, but they are not. Each one is different, each one carrying a little back pack, each one dressed the way someone who loves them would dress them to suit their own pleasure. Each are dressed by a loving parent or guardian who purchased those little outfits from their hard earned money, thinking how darling they would look in them. Each dressed for the pleasure of the one who loves them.

He molded us, designed us, custom built us in the belly.  The word belly is batan which is really the word womb but in it’s Semitic root it is the seat of hunger or desire. The womb is the place where the longing desire of a man and woman who have shared an intimacy hope to find the product of their intimacy which would create something tangible that they could love together.  God formed us, customized us, made us each special and different out of a desire or longing to  create something tangible that He could love.

Then he says that even before we came forth out of the womb he sanctified us.  It is interesting that when we get to the word that we render as womb it turns out to not really be the word for womb at all.  Now that we get the chance to use batan as it is intended we get another word that is rarely used for womb. Here the word that translators, for whatever reason, renders as womb  is the word racham which is really not a word often used for womb. This word is often translated as tender mercies.  It is one of the Hebrew words for love, but this is a romantic type of love, a tender, caring love.  The love between a husband and wife and mother and her baby.  Even before he brought us out of a tender caring love, a careful loving formation, He formed us to bring him a special joy, a special, specific  joy that none of his other created beings could bring him. Each of us are created different from the billions that he creates, like the leaves are slightly or profoundly different than any other we too are slightly or profoundly different  from the other billions upon billions of people that He created Each individual is a specially crafted individual that he made with a heart filled with love, to bring him a joy like no one else in the world could bring to him and then some abortionist comes along and destroys it. Did I just say that? I didn’t write that did I? I mean I don’t want to get controversial here, but then again maybe God is getting His little digs in here as well.  What I meant to say was that before all that He sanctified us.

That word sanctified sounds so mysterious to us in the English.  We rarely use that word outside church, it really just has such an esoteric sound to it.  The word in Hebrew for sanctify is qadash which means to be sacred, hollowed, held up as something very special, so special that you treat it differently, carefully, and respectfully.  Hey, that is you and me, God created us and sanctified us.   Each one of us are sacred, hollowed and held up as something special. Yes, little old bumbling, eccentric, foolish me, He considered that as something very sacred to bring Him joy.

When he formed me sixty four years ago He said, one day I am going to sit with my special racham and we are going to laugh together, ooh and aah together as we watch my leaves fall from a tree.

So how about you, are you giving God the chance to bring Him a special joy, a joy that only you, that one person in six billion can bring to Him?  He made you for a purpose, to bring Him a joy that you and only you can bring to Him.