Gods thinks about you always

                                              

 Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of John Hopkins in Baltimore. We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to outpatients at the clinic. One summer evening there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a truly awful looking man. He was hardly taller than my eight-year-old and had a stooped, shriveled body.  His face was lopsided from swelling and yet his voice was pleasant.

He said, “Good evening. I’ve come to see if you’ve a room for just one night. I came for treatment this morning from the Eastern Shore, and there’s no bus till morning.” I’ve been hunting for a room since noon but with no success. I guess it’s my face”.  For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: “I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch, my bus leaves early in the morning.” I told him we would find him a bed. Later, I went out on the porch to talk with him for a few minutes.

It didn’t take long to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury. He didn’t tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was prefaced with thanks to God for a blessing. He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going.

Just before he left for his bus, haltingly he said, “Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment?” I told him he was welcome. On his next trip as a gift, he brought a big fish; the largest I had ever seen. In the years he came to stay with us there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery.

Whenever I received these gifts, I often thought of a comment our neighbor made after he left that first morning. “Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away! You can lose customers by putting up such people!” Maybe we did lose customers once or twice but our family will always be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God.

Recently I visited a friend, as she showed me her flowers; we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. To my great surprise, it was growing in an old dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, if this were my plant, I’d put it in the loveliest container I had!” My friend explained “I ran short of pots and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn’t mind starting out in this old pail. It’s just for a little while, till I can put it out in the garden.”

I laughed so delightedly, as imagined just such a scene in heaven. “Here’s an especially beautiful one,” God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman. “He won’t mind starting in this small body.”All this happened long ago. And now, in God’s garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand. (The old fisherman, Mary Bartels, 1965)

 

Psalm 139 is a psalm of David. In the first verses of the psalm, David states that he did not come to be by chance, he was a well thought out masterpiece. When God created him he had a plan for his life; he had fashioned him for a unique purpose and placed him where he was to fulfill the purpose. God has a plan for your life (Jer. 29:11) and if you allow his ways to be entrenched in your heart, they will ultimately lead you to become all that he intended you to be.

In Psalm 139:17-18 David says “How precious to me are your thoughts, God. How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them they would outnumber the grains of sand”. God thinks about his people constantly; he keeps his eyes on each one of them at all times. We shall understand this fully in heaven when we learn how often he screened us from trouble, how frequently he prepared us for a trial, so that, when it came, it did not crush us and how often he rescued us out of grave dangers that we never even got to know were lurking!

 

God sometimes convey his thoughts to us through speech even though this is rare. He spoke to Abraham (Gen 15:1-6), Jacob (Gen 28:10-17), Samuel (1 Sam 8:7) and others at a critical time in their lives. Today God speaks to his people mostly through his written word. The abundant life that God intends for his children and what it takes to get it is all written in the Bible. As you study the word of God you will acquire knowledge, understanding and wisdom that you need to get a victorious Christian life.

 

Proverbs 24:3-5 says “By wisdom a house is built and by understanding it is established, by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. A wise man is full of strength and a man of knowledge enhances his might.” Knowledge is apprehending biblical facts, truth and principles clearly and with certainty. Wisdom determines which facts, truth or principles are relevant for a situation based on experience, evaluations and lessons learnt.

 

As you study and practice the word of God, you will discover many good things in there, “He who gives attention to the word will find good” (Prov. 16:20 (ASV).  When you pray God will reveal to you things that you can’t know through any other way. He says “call to me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know.  ESV translation says “great and hidden things that you have not known”.  If you don’t call to him you will never know these great and hidden things.

Some of the promised treasures have conditions attached. For example you have been promised security and radiating joy IF you seek the Lord so that he can deliver you from ALL fears (Ps. 34:4-5).  You have been promised peace which surpasses all understanding  to guard your heart and mind but only IF you do not give in to anxiety but instead make your request known to God through prayer, petition and thanksgiving (Phil 4:6-7). You will be kept in perfect peace but only IF your mind is stayed on God (Isa. 26:3).  

 

There are treasures that will not come to you automatically, you must ask for them. James says “you do not have because you do not ask (James 4:2-3). Jesus said “ask and it will be given to you” (Matt. 7:7).  If you do not know Gods thought you may fail to make it to heaven because while you think you were on the way to heaven you might have missed the narrow path that leads there (Matt 7:13-14).

 

On the other hand you may make it to heaven only to discover that much of your labor was in vain when you watch your work go up in smoke (1 Cor. 3:12-15) because it did not meet God’s clearly set standard (1 Cor.13: 1-3). You might find out that you sent nothing ahead to your eternal home, instead had laid all your treasures on earth (Matt 6:19-21). You might discover you no reward because you received your full reward on earth (Matt 6:1-18).  

 

You might find a pleasant surprise “When Jesus says to you “I was hungry you gave me to eat, I needed clothes you clothed me, I was sick you looked after me” (Matt 25:34-40). You will wonder “but Lord my church did not even consider this a service to you!” He will answer “I know and you still did it for me”! God’s thoughts were precious to David. It is a great joy to be assured that God is thinking about us all the time. We need to find out what makes God delighted when he thinks about us so that we can do it.