Before We Ever Met

Word Unpacked: Devotionals in Ephesians

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Ephesians 1:4-5 (NIV)

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.

Picture two people standing at a wedding, making promises no one is forcing them to make. That's how love should look — chosen freely. But is a wedding vow really strong enough, on its own, to carry a marriage through every hard season that comes after?

Proverbs gives an odd answer: "In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps." Our choices are real, but something is holding up our steps from underneath. Maybe that's what we're reaching for when we call two people "a match made in heaven."

There's an old story about a mighty warrior named Achilles — unstoppable, until one arrow found the one cord holding his whole body up. Every marriage has a cord like that: the belief that this meeting was no accident. Cut it, and everything shakes.

But the apostle Paul wasn't really writing about marriage. He was writing about something further back — a choice made "before the creation of the world," before any of us existed to choose anything at all. In a world full of temples and emperors who wanted to be worshiped as gods, Paul says the true God came down and chose us first.

So who chose the destination of a life like that? Verses 4 and 5 give a startling answer — and it changes what we're allowed to believe about the day we met the people we love, and the day we met God.

That's the turn. But...