More and more this month I’m loving the moments right after my alarm goes off. I don’t mean that sarcastically: that time between sleeping and waking is the only time of day when I am not aware of the world’s growing war.
It’s the time when I’m coming off the emotions of a dream, registering the sunlight on my eyelids as a new day, and wriggling my toes across the fitted sheet one more time. Not being a morning person, I only very gradually come-to, slowly realizing where I am, 
what day it is, and what my obligations are.
And then it hits me: I’m waking in a writhing world with daily escalating tensions, none of which are far from home in our globalized, interconnected world. I’m waking in a worsening world, one that I didn’t choose, with layers and webs of wrong and injustice that may be impossible to sort out with peace talks like the ones that all failed over the past sixteen days.
And I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to get up in this world. Give me another one.
This was my struggle getting out of bed today, and I thought through them as half-prayer, half-monologue. Suddenly a line came to mind: all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
“All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” It’s Psalm 139:16. In a situation where I am reminded that nearly everything on the global scale is out of my control and against my wishes, it was paradigm-shifting to remember that there is still intentionality directed at me (and at you): God ordained for us to be here right now.
This is not meant to spark the God’s-sovereignty-versus-humanity’s-free-will debate. Nor is it meant to be a discourse on the differences between figurative and literal use of language. It’s meant to encourage you with that fact that God says you’re supposed to be alive right here, right now, at this time in history. Psalm 139 is an awe-soaked tribute to a God who cares so much about one person—and by extension, about every person individually. It’s all about God’s foreknowledge and His intentionality.
He is the one who created ex nihilo—out of nothing. This is one of the core doctrines of Christianity: God didn’t use raw materials to build our universe; He created them, too. The God who created everything out of nothing is just as intentional with your life: he is in this day, whether it’s a lousy Tuesday or a random Saturday or your favorite Sunday, all against the backdrop of impending world war. He has created you for this time.
It was Psalm 139:16 that reminded me of God’s power and love, His mercy and sovereignty, this morning, and those were what got me out of bed and into this world. He knows your day and all your thoughts that go into it, even the thoughts that go into not wanting to live it. Let Him share His.
“How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered!” (Psalm 139:17).
Out of nothing, He created this day for you. But this day will not be for nothing.
Get up,
Renée