Before You Were Known by the World, You Were Known by God

Identity begins in love, not in achievement.

There is something profoundly healing about returning to the place where God first speaks over our lives.

Not where people named us.
Not where pain shaped us.
Not where disappointment rewrote our story.

But where He did.

For so many years, I believed my identity was something I needed to earn. If I worked harder, loved better, healed enough, achieved enough… perhaps then I would finally become the woman God could use.

Yet the journey God has taken me on has revealed something entirely different.

Healing didn’t begin when I became stronger.

It began when I allowed myself to believe that I was deeply loved.

That changes everything.

Before there was purpose, there was love.

When God called Jeremiah, He didn’t begin with a list of assignments.

He began with relationship.

“Before I shaped you in the womb, I knew all about you. Before you saw the light of day, I had holy plans for you: a prophet to the nations—that’s what I had in mind for you.”
— Jeremiah 1:5

Notice the order.

Before I formed you…
I knew you.

Before Jeremiah ever spoke a prophetic word…
Before he fulfilled his calling…
Before he felt qualified…

He was already known.

Already loved.

Already chosen.

I think many of us spend our lives trying to discover our purpose, while God keeps inviting us to discover His heart first.

Because purpose always flows from identity.

And identity is always established by love.

You are not an accident.

Genesis tells us that humanity was created in the image of God.

Think about that for a moment.

The Creator of the universe fashioned humanity to reflect His own nature.

Not merely to serve Him.

Not merely to work for Him.

But to live in communion with Him.

You were created with the capacity to receive the full force of God’s perfect love.

You were designed for relationship.

For closeness.

For belonging.

For what Eden represented—a life lived in unhindered fellowship with the Father.

The enemy has worked tirelessly to convince us that our value comes from performance, appearance, approval, or success.

But heaven has never measured us that way.

Your identity has never depended on how well you’ve lived.

It has always depended on whose you are.

Love restores what fear has stolen.

Jeremiah’s first response to God’s calling was fear.

“Ah, Lord God! I don’t know how to speak. I’m only a child.”
— Jeremiah 1:6

Isn’t that familiar?

“I don’t have enough experience.”

“I’m too broken.”

“I’ve made too many mistakes.”

“I’m not spiritual enough.”

“I’ve missed my opportunity.”

Fear always argues with identity.

But God doesn’t debate our insecurity.

He simply speaks truth over it.

“Don’t say, ‘I’m only a child.’ You must go wherever I send you… Do not be afraid… for I am with you.”
— **Jeremiah 1:7–8

God wasn’t asking Jeremiah to become someone else.

He was inviting him to believe what God already knew to be true about him.

I’ve discovered that this is exactly how healing works.

The Lord has never tried to shame me into becoming whole.

He has loved me into remembering who I have always been in Him.

His love slowly dismantles every lie.

Every label.

Every false identity.

Every wound that tried to define me.

Healing helps us represent Him well.

One of the greatest revelations God has given me is this:

He didn’t only heal my heart for my sake.

He healed it so that I could represent Him well.

As He restores us, we become living testimonies.

People don’t merely hear our words.

They encounter His heart through them.

His peace begins to rest on our conversations.

His kindness changes atmospheres.

His hope becomes tangible.

When we know who we are, we stop striving to prove ourselves.

We become secure expressions of Christ.

We begin to reflect His nature without even trying.

And something beautiful happens.

Our healing gives others permission to believe that healing is possible for them too.

Our freedom reminds them of who they were created to be.

Holy ones.

One of my favourite phrases in Scripture is found in Ephesians:

“I pray that the light of God will illuminate the eyes of your imagination, flooding you with light, until you experience the full revelation of the hope of His calling—that is, the wealth of God’s glorious inheritances that He finds in us, His holy ones.”
— Ephesians 1:18 (TPT)

His holy ones.

Not because we are perfect.

But because we belong to Him.

Sometimes we spend so much time trying to discover what God has for us that we forget to discover how He sees us.

He sees sons and daughters.

Beloved.

Chosen.

Known.

His inheritance is not merely what He gives us.

Astonishingly, Scripture says we are His treasured inheritance.

Imagine that.

The God who owns everything delights in calling you His own.

The Way She Walks

The journey of faith is not becoming someone God can finally love.

It is waking up to the reality that you have always been deeply loved by Him.

That is where identity is formed.

That is where healing begins.

That is where confidence grows.

That is where calling becomes a joyful response instead of a heavy burden.

Before you speak.

Before you lead.

Before you build.

Before you achieve.

Before anyone else knows your name…

God already knew you.

He loved you before you had anything to offer Him.

And that love is still the safest place from which to live today.

May you hear His voice above every other voice.

May His love silence every lie that has tried to define you.

And may your life become such a secure expression of His heart that, wherever you walk, others catch a glimpse of the One in whose image they too were created.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…” (Jeremiah 1:5)