Thanks for joining me for today's devotional from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading today is titled,

Liked and Loved by God, and it was written by Adam R. Holes.

It feels like likes, you know, the little thumbs up on Facebook, have always been with us.

But it turns out that this virtual symbol of affirmation has only been around since 2009.

The like designer, Justin Rosenstein, said he wanted to help create a world in which people uplift

each other rather than tear each other down.

But Rosenstein came to lament how his invention

might have enabled users unhealthy addiction to social media. I think Rosenstein's creation

speaks to our hardwired need for affirmation and connection. We want to know that others know

us, notice us, and yes, like us. The like is fairly new, but our hunger

to know and be known is as old as God's creation of man. Still, the like button doesn't quite

get the job done, does it? Thankfully, we serve a God whose love goes so much deeper than a digital nod. In Jeremiah

1-5, we witness his profoundly purposeful connection with a prophet whom he called to himself.

Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart. God knew the prophet even before

conception and designed him for a life of meaning and mission. And he invites us too into a

purposeful life as we come to know this father who so intimately knows, loves, and likes us.

The scripture reading for today from Our Daily Bread is from Jeremiah chapter 1,

verses 1 through 10.

The words of Jeremiah, son of Hilkea, one of the priest at Anathoth in the territory of

Benjamin, the word of the Lord came to him in the 13th year of the reign of Josiah, son of

Amon, king of Judah. And through the reign of Jehoiacim, son of Josiah, king of Judah, down to the fifth month of the 11th year

...