In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.  John 1:1

Ancestry.com has grown in popularity, and many people have spent years constructing their personal genealogy. I have shared meals with those who love to talk about their discoveries. Their faces brighten. Their voices lift. They tell me where their family came from, whose blood runs in their veins, and what hidden stories were waiting in the branches of their family tree.

Often, they discover they are not as peculiar as they thought. They resemble the people who came before them. I once met a woman who said she traced her family line all the way back to Adam. I did not ask how.

If I am willing to live by faith, I can believe that my beginnings are rooted in Someone even earlier than Adam. “In the beginning God…” “In the beginning was the Word…” Before Adam was formed from dust, God was there. Before there was breath in human lungs, the Word was there. Before any name appeared in any genealogy, Father, Son, and Spirit existed in the Holy Trinity. Behind every family tree is a Person, not nothingness.

To understand who I am, I must know where I came from and why I was created. I cannot sit across the table from a four-hundred-year-old ancestor and ask, “Who am I? Why am I here? What story do I belong to?” But I can ask the Word. And He is not silent.

He tells me that my life is not accidental, my story is not random, and my origin is not merely biological. My history began before history, in the mind and heart of God. The internet may give me access to Ancestry.com. The Scriptures do something infinitely better. They give me access to my ancestry in God.

You are the foundation beneath every life and every name. My history began in the cradle of Your heart. Amen