“Select a meaningful passage and explain its importance to you.”
“a”? As in, only one?? It might be easier to select from the few that aren’t necessarily meaningful, like quantities of animals in the herds of Lot. Choosing one among those that are meaningful is a practically impossible task, but I can choose a theme. There’s our uniqueness, the declaration that God has known us by name since before our births, that the length and course of each life was mapped out before it started, complete with objectives and opportunities to be equipped to meet them, that our God is a God of second chances, that our names are written in the palm of His hand, and that one day His very hand will wipe the tears of a lifetime from our eyes.
Psalm 139:15-16 King James Version (KJV)
15My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 16Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
Nothing was hidden from Him, when my character, impressions, and responses were formed in the secret places of my mind and soul. When I learned isolation, empathy, injustice and mercy, He oversaw it all. He arranged for me to meet people who couldn’t hear, couldn’t see, couldn’t think, couldn’t walk – the strong and the weak, the foreigner, the unusual, and those too apparently healthy to realize they were actually ill. He walked with me when I walked beside them, and when I walked alone. He made sure I could see at least a few instances when He arranged for my direct protection from unavoidable threats and otherwise hidden snares. He has been careful to remind me that He knows me, more intimately than any parent, sibling, friend, spouse or child ever could.
More constant than the beauty of Heaven or the horror of Hell is the fact that the Divine Creator knows my language and chooses to use it to communicate with me. More comforting than the platitudes about everyone having troubles of some kind or other is the knowledge that He who conducts the entire universe is very well aware of the score He’s written for each individual instrument. He planned the harmonies and the dissonances, the rests and crescendos, the apparent battles between piccolos and tubas, on purpose, to form a dramatic symphonic masterpiece. He knows when we get off key, out of tune, or completely lost in the pages – and He doesn’t stop the entire orchestra to point it out. Rather, He deftly makes whatever adjustments are necessary to one or more scores, even a DS al Coda, to make it all come out right. He knows our strengths and weaknesses, our backgrounds, influences, and every thought that shoots across our minds – thus He is not surprised, befuddled, or exasperated by either our successes or our failures. He asks only that we keep a close watch on His eye and baton, following where He leads. Someday, when the symphony is finished and the applause begins, He will wave a nail-scarred hand in our direction, that we may also bow. Hearing the applause of God, all else will cease to matter, especially the missed & messed up notes of an individual instrument.