I’m regaining my wits 7 days post-life-saving surgery. I recall lying in a hospital bed gazing at the clock on the wall, my brain stunned with pain, confusion, helplessness. Oh, and anesthesia plus opioids. Yet, somehow, I heard these words cut through the fog, enter my depths and change everything:
“You’re Mine! You’re mine! You’re Mine!”
It’s not the first time I’d heard those words spoken, nor was I the first one they’d been spoken to. God declared them to His people after their Egyptian deliverance when He’d plunked them down in a wilderness place for trust and dependency training.
I’d heard them spoken often when stepping into the morning trek to the milking parlor, gazing toward Montana skies filled with a few billion (God-named) stars. He wasn’t speaking to the stars, He was speaking to me. It grounded me. Gave me an identity anchor.
More recently, I’ve heard them spoken daily on my commute to the factory I now work in. It’s an ancient rhythm so ingrained that, no matter where my thoughts have drifted, when my tires bump across Cow Creek bridge on the border of Idaho’s Latah and Nez Perce counties, I remember to listen for them. It lifts me toward something eternal. It changes everything.
Today I read Psalm 68:28:
“Thy God hath sent forth strength for thee; stablish the thing, O God, that thou hast wrought in us.”
What’s wrought mean? It means to make systematically and habitually. (Reminds me of why I love the word “liturgy” so much.)
Here’s why these words change everything for me. My circumstances aren’t altered. I did nothing to deserve them. They simply come to me. Repeatedly. They declare who I am and to Whom I belong. They form my core identity.
Barnyard of Heaven 