Matthew 10:29 “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.”
Matthew 10:29 “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.”
I admit that sometimes I consider God to regard much of the world like a great clockmaker. He created it, long ago, but since the entrance of sin, he’s let it operate on its own, with little involvement. This is how it feels, how it seems, when you look at the world at large. For who—outside of believers—is paying attention to God? Who is acknowledging his influence and existence? Surely that must mean, besides those individuals who actually seek him, God does not care for anything, anyone else.
The way the above verse is worded caught me off guard. It made me realize (as foolish as my old thinking was) that God isn’t just watching sparrows fall out of trees. And he doesn’t ‘care’ for them in a detached, abstract way, as through the natural world he created. No, Jesus clearly says here that the Father is, personally, caring for the sparrows. If he is so concerned for the natural world, the plants and animals he created, then he must be paying attention to all mankind, in a greater way than I realize.
“He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” It’s not just that he lets us live on this earth. He’s not just watching us live, watching us commit good and evil deeds. Can you believe that the Father is actually tending to our daily lives? That even the unbeliever, the one who chooses to ignore God, even that person is being taken care of by God. And again not in some, detached, abstract way. Not in a way like, he created the world and the elemental principles, and because of the way those thing operate people can live and eat and do business. Nope. God is much more intimately acquainted with our lives, all of our lives. The unbeliever and the follower.
That was hard for me to swallow. God is really that much involved in our lives? To the point where he might be involved in every detail of how we live? What about sin? Sin is all the more disgusting when I think about how God is woven into this world. How much is he grieved? How much is he angered? When he daily watches over us and cares for our needs and we go on flagrantly disobeying him? What about the unbeliever? How can God care for him so much and not point him to Christ? It is that very care that is pointing us to Christ. If it weren’t for God’s constant overseeing, there would be no earth, there would be no society left. And how little do we regard the undeniable ways God directs our hearts and minds to his Son? “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” Truly it is only our absolute stubbornness and stupidity that each one of us does not walk in faith and fellowship with the Son.
“For in him we live and move and have our being.” It is amazing how hard we work to ignore the Father’s influence in our lives.
So what should my reaction be? What do I do with this new understanding? Jesus said this while preparing the apostles for work. They were about to embark on their first trip, alone, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom. He was reassuring them of God’s providence, of his guidance and control over their lives. Why should they worry about what each new town will bring? Why should they be afraid of running out of food or money? The Father is daily caring for the little sparrows. “You are worth more than many sparrows.”
The world is shaking and roiling in chaos and fear. It is blindly spitting out hate and contempt for the God who create them, and is plunging into war, famine and despair. Now is the time for believers to hold fast to the Father, for even this pitiful world is under his care. All their violent doubt cannot change this fact.
