“Your Father knows what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him” (Matt. 6:8). What wonderful words are these! “YOUR Father!” If God is our Father, we are blessed indeed, One with infinite wisdom, love and power. One who knows what we need. What we want is another matter. A child in a family gets its needs supplied, but if the young hopeful of three years of age wants his father’s sharp razor to play with he is refused. God is as loving in His refusals as in His answers.
He is marked by wisdom, love and power—a perfect combination. For instance a mother might bend in tenderest love over her sick and dying child. She loves the child but she lacks the power to raise the child to health again. Again a father may have an only son. He is rich; and can give his son every luxury, and gratify every whim the youth may have, and in the end spoil the child for life. He has love and power, but lacks wisdom. But in the case of our heavenly Father there is love, power and wisdom.
Have we a need? We can go into the presence of our Father with the assurance that before we tell Him our need, He knows it. Such knowledge seems too wonderful for us to understand. Yet it is true in a fullness beyond our grasping.
We look up at the heavens, and see the glittering stars in their multitudes. Their number is beyond human calculation. Sir James Jeans says they are as the sands of the seashore for multitude, and this is but the echo of Scripture. “He tells the number of the stars; He calls them all by their names” (Ps. 147:4). Yet it puts the immensely great beside the sorrows of the insignificant individual, for the previous verse says, “He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.”
In nature it is the immensely great things that man cannot encompass, and equally so the very little. Man can build the Great Pyramid, but what is that, but a mere speck of dust compared to the globe on which we find ourselves. And our globe is a mere speck of dust beside the sun from which we derive our heat and light and material blessings. On the other hand one has looked at a tiny midge, so easily crushed between finger and thumb, and marvelled at the mighty God endowing it with the powers of reproduction, and giving it every organ that is necessary for life. Man cannot do that. Take the finest steel needle ever made. Put it under a powerful microscope, and it will look a rough, jagged piece of metal. Telescope and microscope can only reveal fresh glories in God’s handiwork.
It is a wonderful fact, that the God who can create in a word the universe, is the God, who calls Himself Father to His own blood-redeemed people.
We are told in Matthew 10:29 that two sparrows are sold for a farthing. Again in Luke 12:6 we find that five sparrows are sold for two farthings showing how worthless a sparrow is, yet we are told that not one of them is forgotten before God. Then we are told that we are of more value than many sparrows, that the very hairs of our head are all numbered.
Is it any wonder then, after all, that God knows our petitions before we ask of Him? It is to our blessing to meditate on such love and care, to enter the presence of God with joy and confidence, and place before Him our needs, knowing that He knows our needs before we ask Him. “Casting all your care upon Him; for “He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). “HE cares for you.” What a solace!
In the earlier days of the revolution a Bolshevist scornfully boasted to a Russian believer that the Government had removed every trace of God from the land. It was true that churches were destroyed, or so defaced as to have no resemblance to what they once had been, and other things reminding of religion had been effaced, indeed all that man could put his hand on. The believer pointed at the stars, and said, “You have not removed those.” Aye, and remember, behind the stars there is God, the mighty Spirit and Source of every good gift. And that God is your Father. “The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble: and HE KNOWETH THEM THAT TRUST IN HIM” (Nah. 1:7).