Thursday, January 17, 2008

Maybe God doesn't hear you.

The world is pretty big. There are a lot of countries, with millions and millions of square miles of people and land and ocean. The universe is even bigger than that. I’ve never been but from the photos I’ve seen it’s massive. Pathways of stars, belts of black holes and galaxies and planets. It’s just endless, and somewhere up there, God knows your boyfriend broke up with you.

Maybe he doesn’t. I mean, maybe he’s up there and he’s working on really big stuff. He’s healing famines and trying to bring peace to war torn lands. The greatness of his issues makes your little issues look ordinary and simple and maybe even boring.

But it’s getting harder and harder for me to think that. Every now and then I come across a verse that shakes my deep belief that I am beneath God’s radar. One that I found recently was Psalm 56:8. Here, in what hopefully makes me look pretty smart, is the King James Version:

“Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?”

I admit, that’s not the clearest word in the world, so here’s what the New Living Translation says:

“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.”

I think that’s beautiful. Can you imagine that? Can you picture God doing that? Taking his giant hands and tenderly picking up every single one of your tears? Knowing why it came, understanding what it means, placing it in his bottle. Waking up in the middle of the night to look at it. Standing there in his big God kitchen with the night dark and the windowsill empty except for your tears. A hand holding that bottle and wishing it was you instead that he was comforting.

That’s how God spends his days.

That’s how small this big universe is.


2 comments:

Georgia said...

I really identify with this. One of the things I have struggled with mightily is believing God sees me and cares about potty training (or that we had to call a plumber today when we didn't have the money to do it). I'm glad to know this verse. So many women I know feel misunderstood and alone...and knowing that not only does God delight in the details of our lives (Psalm 37:23), but He's collecting our tears and putting them in His bottle...it makes me want even more to have an intimate relationship with Him so I can get to know Him better. If that makes any sense...

Brenda said...

This reminds me of a verse that tells us to pray about everything, no matter how big or small. It makes me feel that God cares, or else he wouldn't want me to pray about it.