Psalm 100

This has always been one of my most favorite psalms. I think I used to hear it on a recording as the introduction to a song when I was a child. In my mind, I can still hear a conglomeration of different children’s voices reciting the verses of this psalm. It is succinct and simple. It’s my kind of psalm.

On this trip through the Bible, the verse that stuck out to me was verse 3: “Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” Other versions bring out the aspect of this verse that God is the Creator and we are not (in other words, we didn’t make ourselves). But, because He made us, we belong to Him.

I look at this psalm very differently now that I have children. Both of my daughters are special and unique, and I know full well that they belong to me. It is I (and my husband) who made them, and not they themselves. No matter where they go in life, no matter what they do, no matter who they become, they will always have their origins in the love story of David and Kelley Lorencin. Always.

They will never be able to escape the fact that they came from us. They might pretend it’s not so. They might refuse to think about it or talk about it. They might disown us as their parents. But none of that would change the fact that one of the two cells which began each of their existence came from me, and one came from David, and they grew inside my body. They didn’t just appear here out of nowhere. David and I knew them both from the time they were in the womb, even before they “knew themselves.”

And so, now having the perspective of being a mother, I read this text somewhat bemused because, in the world where I live, there are a great number of people who would like to disown their heavenly Father. There are a great number of people who would like to pretend that they did not come from a Creator but, rather, from a cosmic accident. There are a great number of people who would like to believe they mutated from pond scum or monkeys.

But none of that can change the fact that the Creator made them, and they belong to Him. They didn’t just appear out of nowhere. Before they appeared on the planet, they were known by God just as surely as I know my daughters.

We are all beloved children of our heavenly Father. He made us, and we belong to Him. In His eyes, each one of us is infinitely precious. Each one of us has inestimable worth. We didn’t make ourselves, and we don’t live only unto ourselves. God made us, and no matter where we go in life, no matter what we do, no matter who we become, we will always have our origins in the love story of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

Always.