Praise

I will sing to the Lord, and give Him praise. His love is greater than we know.

With every day, I see His face. More and more it shows.

His love is beauty; it’s grace and truth. It’s more precious than gold.

The Lord is Good; He is Just; His Love endures, forevermore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Details

Since becoming a believer, I have heard a wide range of views regarding where God is, “in the details“. Some people believe God isn’t intimately involved in the details of our lives – and this is presupposing you believe in God at all, let alone in Father God, Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit, separate but One. The range of “God doesn’t care” to “God picked out my shirt today” is pretty wide.

When I hear what people think, those on the former end of the spectrum tend to make my heart sad. Those on the latter end tend to make me at least thankful that they see the Lord as intimately involved. That’s where I am with the Lord. As I receive and allow more of His love, and the truth of who He is in Christ Jesus, to shine into my heart daily, I come to find Him more intimately involved than any of us could ever think, dream or imagine.

One thing I wondered was whether this viewpoint of God in the details had a clear linkage to a person’s belief in the story of creation, told in Genesis. A very clear example was a scientist, whom I’m very fond of, who is also a believer. This person didn’t think God was very involved in our lives. This person also doesn’t really believe what the Bible says in the first book of Genesis, either, reasoning that God + evolution = life as we know it.

Though I don’t take that viewpoint, my thought was this: God took six full days to create the earth and all therein. On the 7th He rested. Now, if you know the Lord and accept the fact that He’s awesome, almighty, completely powerful, and good, then you see that He (1) took His time and (2) wanted it to be perfect for us to live in. The Word says that a day with the Lord is like a thousand years, and a thousand years, like a day. What that tells me is, if the Lord took 6 days to do anything, He was not taking His time for nothing. Is not everything on earth entirely intricate, down to the smallest molecules, to the largest trees? Are we not “fearfully and wonderfully made”, as King David sang to the Lord in a psalm? We certainly are. God is entirely detail oriented. That’s His nature.

Everything God does for Himself, through Christ Jesus, by His Spirit, is good. After every day He made, He said, “This is good.” Now if the Lord took that much time and detail to simply (ha! as if I could do it, too) develop the construct in which He would place us to live, how much more attention, focus, and detail do you think He took when He made you? Do you know that He loves you and would have only desired the best for you? Sadly, we lost perfection long ago. But God said He has prepared plans (i.e. details) for you – for your life specifically – to unite you with Himself and give you hope and a good future. That’s love in the details.

I think as humans, we tend to project our abilities onto God, and then reason, “Well that’s how God must be”. But that’s not what He says about Himself. Also, if we choose not to accept what The Lord says about Himself, about His abilities, and about what He’s done, as given to us in His Word, the Bible, then surely we already set ourselves up to not interpret His Love or even His Being, properly.

If you’re a parent who really loves their child or children, I’m sure you would want to try to construct as many ‘details’ of their lives as you could to ensure that they were well loved, well nurtured, protected, empowered, blessed, educated, and equipped before stepping out from under your wing. The Lord is the same way. He thought of you before you were you! He saw you. He knew you. He loved (and still does love) you.

Realizing I was a thought of God’s mesmerizes me. How many thoughts do we have, actually think on, keep, and then act out or on to bring to life? You were just that to the Lord God and Jesus Christ, His Son 🙂 You are loved, and God is at work in the details of your life.

(Encouraging references: 1 John 4:17, Jeremiah 29:11, Psalm 139, 1 Corin 2:6-7)