It is related of an astronomer that he was so overwhelmed by the vastness of creation that he felt that God could not take any interest in him, tiny atom as he felt himself to be. As his telescope revealed to his wondering eyes worlds upon worlds, bigger by far than our sun in many cases, he was staggered and he began to lose his faith.
After a time the astronomer was looking through a microscope. When he saw a tiny creature, invisible to the naked eye, disporting itself in a single drop of water in the joy of living, his faith began to revive again; he thought that if God could care for a tiny creature like that He could care for him.
Ah! if only he had read his Bible attentively he might have been saved the collapse of his faith, and the revival of his faith would have been on surer grounds than observing the very minute beauties that a microscope reveals.
Possibly there are many tried saints of God, who under the pressure of circumstances, begin to question if God cares for them.
The glory of God is that He is sufficient for the very minute as well as the very vast. As a rule great men attend to great things and leave little things to the care of little men. There are men who can only attend to little things, and are not capable of attending to great things. How blessed it is to turn to our God and know that while He sustains the mighty universe, of whose vast extent man knows but little, He notes the falling tear of His saint. The psalmist could say, “Thou tellest my wanderings: put Thou my tears into Thy bottle: are they not in Thy book?” (Ps. 56:8).
When the Lord gave His commission to His disciples, and showed to them that the day would come when their persecutors would seek to put them to death, and succeed as we know all too well, He said to them, “Are not two sparrows sold for five farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?” The sparrow so worthless that if a customer bought two-farthings worth an extra bird would be thrown in! Then the disciples were reminded that they were of more value than many sparrows and that the very hairs of their head were all numbered. How wonderful that God can care for such details, yet this is the glory of God that it is so!
Again we read, “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are ye not much better than they?” (Matt. 6:26). Again, we are told to “consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say to you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” (Matt. 6:28-30).
How encouraging it is to dwell on these passages of Scripture. How it comforts the heart and encourages the saint of God to trust in His care that covers the upholding of the universe and the needs of the worthless sparrow or the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven. How much more will He care for His blood-bought people. It is interesting to observe that when God records the original creation He does so in one verse of ten words (Gen. 1:1). When He describes the origin of the stars that stud the vast expanse of space in their millions He does so in five words: “He made the stars also” (Gen. 1:16).
And then we find no less than over thirteen chapters devoted to the history of one man—Abraham, besides copious allusions to him in no less than ten New Testament books, notably Romans, Galatians, Hebrews and James.
And yet in the eyes of the astronomer this earth is but a mere speck of dust in the universe, and Abraham a tiny atom in that speck. How could the great God in heaven take notice of such utter insignificance? Yet we read, “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham” (Acts 7:2). He was but a poor idolator in Ur of the Chaldees, but when he knew God as the God of glory everything for him was changed. He stands as the example for us all. He is the fountain head of promise for faith.
We need not go into the details of Abraham’s life. To refer to it is sufficient for our purpose.
Moral things are greater than material things. Man is after all greater than the whole of the material universe. Inanimate creation cannot commune with God. Man can. Herein stands his greatness, as given by God, and his responsibility. It brings into perspective the terrible ruin of the fall. It is infinitely sad to see unregenerate men living like the beasts below them in the fact that they have no sense of the claims of God, nay, often are violently opposed to God from whom they derive all they possess in the way of life—health, food, shelter. Moral things are more than material things. The following eloquent passage proves this.
“But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?
“Man knows not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living.
“The depth says, It is not in me: and the sea says, It is not with me.
“It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof
“It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire.
“The gold and the crystal cannot equal it: and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold.
“No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies,
“The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold” (Job 28:12-19).
Wisdom in the humblest saint—God-given—is more than the tiara of glittering diamonds in the head of a proud empress.
Do we not learn a lesson here? God does not explain astronomy, or chemistry, or a thousand and one things of great interest, but He does tell us at great length of His dealings with one men—Job—in the book that is called by his name, consisting of forty-two chapters; He does let us know for our profit the exercises of His saints in their distresses and troubles, as seen in the one hundred and fifty Psalms, that constitute a special portion of Scripture.
Above all, have we not the amazing fact that “the mighty God, the everlasting Father” (Isa. 9:6) should stoop to man’s estate in order to bless man and bring him into heights of blessing that will shine through the eternal ages when the vast universe that we see shall have fulfilled its purpose and been burned up.
So we end our meditation with the magnificent verse, “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32). His love is as much expressed when He gives us sorrow as when He gives joy, when He gives clouds as when He gives sunshine. So we answer the question of our title, “Does God care for me?” “with an emphatic, adoring, worshipping YES!