Someone had been thinking of me. Preparations had been made for my coming. I felt welcomed, important.
A menu had been planned. Food had been prepared. My sister-in-law had even arranged to leave her work early to prepare dinner. She had invited her three children and two significant others who all arranged their schedules so the whole family was together to share the meal with me. I was touched that they had prepared for my visit.
How much more touching is the realization that a heavenly Father prepared for me long before I was born, just as he did for you. Of Jesus, Peter wrote, “He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake” (1 Peter 1:20).
In the darkness before the dawn of time, long before any mortal made the first moral mistake, God prepared to forgive. Predating judgment, love and mercy lived in the heart of the Father. “This grace,” Paul tells us, “was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time” (2 Timothy 1:9).
Before we arrived, He thought of everything. He engineered an incredibly beautiful world for us to inhabit, and he designed for us complex eyes with which to enjoy it. He invented music and harmony and planned for us ears with which to hear. Before there were tongues to taste them, he fashioned unfathomable flavors. Before we yawned in boredom, he devised “good works, prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). Before you and I were even a twinkle in our parent’s eyes, we were a thought in God’s mind.
Above all else, thousands of years before you had hands with which to accept it, the Lord extended to you a gift. – “the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time” (Titus 1:2)
Even now, Jesus has gone “to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2). What that will be like, I cannot comprehend. Having seen how well he prepared this temporary home, I can only begin to imagine what that permanent dwelling must be like.
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”
~1 Corinthians 2:9
Someone has been thinking of you. Elaborate preparations have been made. What God has prepared, you do not want to miss.

A Word from Williams Road is provided by the Williams Road Church.