Does God Care?
BE like to know that people think about us. Even a postal card coming in the mail from a friend far away, saying only, “I am thinking of you,” brings you a strange uplift. You were sick for a time and could not see your friends. On one of your lonely days a rose was sent up to your room with a card and a message of love, and you remember how it cheered you. Some one was thinking of you. You were in sorrow and a little note came in with just a verse of Scripture, or a “God bless you,” and a name. It was almost as if an angel from heaven had visited you, strengthening you. Somebody was thinking of you. You have not forgotten how it helped you.
“How precious also are thy thoughts unto
me, O God!” So God thinks of you, too. In
the previous verses of the Psalm the poet tells us that God knows all our thoughts. Here he tells us of God’s own thoughts for us — he thinks of us, thinks of us with love. His thoughts are precious, like gold. Then they are without number — that is, he does not think of us merely once in a while, but continually.
The Bible teaches unmistakably that God cares for us. A scientific writer is aid to have declared that the greatest discovery of the twentieth century will be the discovery of God, and then it will be known that God does not care. It would be very sad if this should prove to be true. But we do not need to wait for a new discovery of God. The discovery has already been made, and God does care. Not only are we in God’s thoughts, but he thinks about us as individuals, not merely as a race. The Father never forgets one of his children, even the least. Though you are cast upon a bare rock in the sea and no friend knows where you are, you are in God’s thought. He is watching and caring. [220 1 yoejs (15oD Care?
Though you are carrying to-day some secret grief or trouble which no one on earth can know, he knows, he sympathizes, he is thinking of you.
Among so many, can he care?
Can special love he everywhere f ’
/ asked. My soul bethought of this — In just that very place of his
Where he hath put and keepeth you,
God hath no other thing to do.^^
If you actually believe this, all your troubles will be made light and life’s meaning will all be changed for you.
Providence is full of illustrations of God’s special thought for his children. In an address made in Glasgow before an Insurance and Actuarial Society, on The Incalculable Elements of Business, James Byers Black told the story of the escape of the one man who survived the Tay Bridge disaster, some years since. This man left the train when it stopped for a moment at Fort Street [ 221 ]
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Station, just before it started on its journey to death. His hat blew oif and he yielded to his impulse to follow it. At that instant the train moved off and the man was left standing alone at the little wayside station, on a dark, tempestuous night. He was vexed and greatly irritated at being thus left behind. Within a very few minutes the train had crashed through the broken bridge and had carried seventy-four persons — everyone on board — down to death in the remorseless waters of the Tay. The man whose hat blew off was the sole survivor of that night’s tragedy.
It would be interesting to know this man’s subsequent history. Why was he spared? What work was there for him to do.’^ If we could understand the mystery of divine providence, no doubt we should learn the reason why God thought of this man and kept him off the ill-fated train. We call this a special providence. But was this a providence any more than a thousand other things that have no tragic importance in our lives.’’ Some one [ 222 ]
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once asked George Macdonald if he believed in special providences. He said, “Yes, in the providences, but not in the special.” Not now and then, in some remarkable instance, but in every event and occun-ence there is a divine providence. God is always on the field. Our life is full of God. We do not always see his hand, but he is never absent. There are no accidents, no chances, in life. God thinks of us continually and watches over all our movements.
We call it a providence when there is a disaster on the railway and we are not hurt. Is it any less a providence when the train runs through with no disaster, and we come to our destination uninjured.? One man asked in a meeting that thanks be given because when his horse stumbled on the edge of a great precipice he escaped being dashed to death. Another man arose and asked to be included in the thanksgiving because he passed over the same mountain road and his horse did not stumble. Not only does God deliver us in danger, but he guards us from danger. [223]
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God’s thoughts for our life may not always be our thoughts, but they are ahvays good thoughts. There is a word in Isaiah which says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” It is God’s thought we want for our life, rather than our own. God’s thought for us is higher than ours, that is, wiser, better, safer, than ours. We will all assent to this as a theory of life. But when we come to the acceptance of God’s thought, his waj’, his plan, instead of our own, sometimes we fail. We are not willing to accept his thought for us. If you were directing your own life, you would leave out some disappointment, perhaps, some loss or sorrow. You would not have had this year’s pinching times, or some special trial, if you were changing things to your mind. But would your life be better that way? Perhaps the best things will come out of the things you would omit if you were planning.
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“// some things were omitted, or altered as we
would. The whole might he unfitted to work for perfect
good. Our plans may be disjointed, hut we may calmly
rest; What God has once appointed is better than our
hest.”
When we say, “How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God!” we should be ready to accept them, to yjelciourselves to them. Have you ever thought what a glorious thing it is to have God plan for your life, to know that he thought about you before you were made, and then made you according to his thought? No wonder George Macdonald said he would rather be the being God made him to be than the most glorious creature he could think of. No possible human plan for your life could be half so high, so noble, so beautiful, as God’s thought for you.
This is true, not only of the plan of our life
in general, but of each detail of it. We are
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coming all the while to certain experiences which so break into our thought for our own life that we are startled, and say, “Surely this cannot be God’s thought for me.” Sometimes we have pleaded with God to withhold from us something — some sorrow, some loss, some pain — which seemed to be impending, and we did not get our request. That which impended came on in spite of our prayers that it might not come. What really happened? God’s perfect thought for us at that point went on in our life instead of our lower thought. And that was best. Our desire should always be that God’s thought slialLbe realized and not ours. One was speaking of unanswered prayer. There had been the most passionate pleading for something without which it seemed that the person’s happiness and good would be most incomplete. It appeared, indeed, that it would be nothing less than disaster if the request were not granted. But if it was God’s thought for the life, it would have been no disaster. The disaster would have been the [ 226 ] yoess cKoD Care?
granting of my friend’s request. “My ways are higher than your ways,” that is, wiser, better, more glorious. One puts it thus:
“‘Twas long ago. When I was young. Alas! I did not know A better way. I said, ‘It must he so,
Or God cannot he good.’ Alas! Alas! my poor weak human pride I How differently woidd I have quiMy cried
If I had understood.
“And now I hear A thankfid heart for that unanswered prayer. And so I think it will be when, up there,
Where all is known, We look upon the things we longed for so, And see how little were they worth, and know
How soon they were outgrown.’’
God’s thoughts for us are always good. Jeremiah, in comforting the exiles in captivity, said, “I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil.” When you are passing [ 227 ]
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VA,
through some great sorrow, some overwhelming loss, some sore trial, God’s thought for you always is peace, good, blessing. If only we would believe this, if only we would be sure of it, whatever the experiences may be, nothing ever could disturb us. Has it not always been so? God never had a thought toward any child of his that was not a thought of peace. He always means good even in the most painful trials. The cross of Christ, terrible as it was, was a thought of God and we know what infinite blessing the cross brought to the world. Every disappointment of yours is a thought of love, if you understood it.
“How precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God!” What is God’s thought for your life? Something beautiful, perfect. God’s thought for you is eternal life — a life of blessing and holy service here, and then glory. Do not fail to be what God made you to be and wants you to be. Do not disappoint God. Some people do. His thought for them is beauty, love, obedience, holiness, [228 ]
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glory, and at the end they bring him nothing but sin, marring, ruin. They reject his higher way for them and insist on having their own. And the end is disaster, not good or blessing.
*’ Home! the safe and blissful shelter where is glad and fvU content, And companionship of kindred; and the treasures early
rent From your holding shall be given back more precious
than before.
Oh, you will not mind the journey with such blessedness
in store,
When the road leads home.
t’Oh, you will not mind the roughness nor the steepness of the way, Nor the chill, unrested morning, nor the drearness of
the day; And you will not take a turning to the left or to the right, But go straight ahead, nor tremble at the coming of the night, For the road leads home.’*