God’s Thoughts
How
precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them,
Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains
of sand.
When I am awake, I am still with you.—Psalm 139:17–18
Have you ever
tried to count the grains of sand on the seashore? For those of us who have
tried, it is absolutely impossible! There are so many in just a scoop of your
hand that it becomes incomprehensible to think that we could even begin to
count them.
In this
scripture verse, the psalmist tells us that God’s thoughts toward us even
outnumber the grains of sand on the seashore! What imagery. The Father, who
created us and who numbered all our days, is thinking about us all the time. He
never stops thinking about you. ... And they are not thoughts of condemnation
and judgment, but thoughts of love. How precious are His thoughts toward us.
In our limited
understanding, this is just too good to be true ... but it is true.
God is
thinking about you right now!—Author unknown
The universe is
one of God’s thoughts.—Friedrich Schiller
The humble
creatures of earth and air and sea show forth God’s thought. Insects are
ingenious. The firefly that plays hide-and-seek on a summer night shows us that
insects had a flashlight before we did.
God made it
so.
The ichneumon
fly has a drill with which she can bore a hole four inches deep in a tree and
deposit her eggs.
God made it
so.
Beetles and
carpenter bees have drills. The carpenter bee can drill a hole fourteen inches
deep.
God made it
so.
There is a
certain ant that makes a tunnel through a foot of solid stone.
God made it
so.
The sawfly,
which worked before man had a saw, has two tiny saws, working alternately back
and forth, side by side, to produce grooves in trees.
God made it
so.
Spiders are real engineers,
surpassing the architects of the Brooklyn Bridge in many ways.
God made it
so.
The oak tortrix draws the edges of a leaf together with thread
until he has made a comfortable shelter for himself.
God made it so.—Author
unknown
I want to know all
God’s thoughts; all the rest are just details.—Albert Einstein
God demonstrated
our importance to Him in two great acts. First He created us in His own image,
and second He—through Jesus Christ—died for our sins. God thought so much of
you, believed in you, and saw you as a person of such worth, that He allowed
His Son to die so that you could live. When we begin to see ourselves in light
of God’s actions on our behalf, then we immediately begin to have more
confidence. There is nothing more humbling than the realization that if you
were the only person on this earth, Jesus would have died for you. That makes
you priceless.—John C. Maxwell
God’s Words are
His thoughts expressed in words. The Bible has much to say about God’s
thoughts.
Jeremiah 29:11
says, “I know the thoughts I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace
(good) and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” The NIV says it this
way, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not harm you.”
He goes on to say in verses 12–13, “Then you will call upon Me
and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your
heart.” The Lord thinks good thoughts about us! … He plans to prosper us,
give us a future, and give us hope! … His thoughts toward us are
thoughts of peace and good. He thinks good thoughts of us. And we can know what
those thoughts are! All we have to do is ask Him. …
God’s good
thoughts about us are too numerous to list all of them. But I must talk about
His thoughts toward us that are written in Psalm 139. I will paraphrase some of
them, but I encourage you to read it for yourself. First of all, He created us,
in our innermost being. His eyes saw our unformed bodies before we were born.
And all the days ordained for us were written in His Book of Life before we
ever came into being. He knit us together in our mothers’ wombs. He made us in
the secret place, and we were woven together in the depths of the earth. He
knows us, every part of us, and is familiar with all our ways. He knows the
words we are going to speak before we speak them. He protects us with His
divine hand. There is no place we can go on this earth, or even into outer
space, that He won’t be there with us at all times. He shines His light into
our darkness. His thoughts toward us are so precious and vast that they would
outnumber all the grains of sand. He loves us! We are the beloved of God.
That’s who we are!
Think about it!
He thought us first… He saw us in His mind’s eye! With His
thoughts, His Words, we were created! And remember, we were created in His
image!6 How wonderful it is that we are that
important to God. When we are tempted to think wrong thoughts about ourselves,
or each other, let’s think about how God sees us. We are all His precious,
beloved creation. Also, let’s remember: the thoughts that we think, if spoken
and acted upon, can create what we are thinking and seeing in our mind’s eye.
If we think good thoughts, they can create good things in our lives. And, if we
think God’s thoughts (those found in the Bible), He also goes to work to uphold
and perform His Word in our lives.—Scott Seidel
Many, O Lord my
God, are Your wonderful works which You have done; and Your thoughts toward us
cannot be recounted to You in order; if I would declare and speak of them, they
are more than can be numbered.—Psalm 40:5