"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 (NIV)
One of the wonderful things about spring in Canada is that the song birds come back. I was sitting on my deck early this morning and I could hear birds all over the backyard. As I started to wonder which sound belonged to which bird, and what they were doing, and I thought of this verse in Matthew 10, that has been so encouraging to me over the years. God knows each little bird. He knows what they are doing and He is intimately involved in their lives and deaths.
Job 39 speaks of His presence and His care over the wild animals; the concept of God caring for the doe hiding in a thicket giving birth in pain (the fall), is to me the most wonderful picture of all. He made all of these creatures; He cares for them and continues to care for them even in this broken world of sin. We look at nature and the terrible dog-eat-dog aspect of nature, and shudder. Yet do we realize that this terrible aspect of nature is a result of sin? That God’s design did not involve death, and that in His future kingdom on earth the lion will lay down with the lamb?
Even though this world is gripped with sin and death, God still cares for His creatures in a broken world. The Bible is full of examples of God hearing the cry of one of His humans and coming to their rescue. Hagar leaps to mind immediately! We hear a bird call and wonder what is going on. God hears the cry of every creature and cares for them! Our Lord’s point in Matthew 10 is that we can trust God because God cares more for us than a bird.
I was visiting my father in his nursing home the other night and as I turned the corner of the hall, I could hear him all the way down the hall, crying out for help. Who hears those cries? Well we hope that the nursing staff hear them, but we know that God hears them. What a wonderful God we worship; a God who hears our cries when no else does! A God who understands when no one else does! A God who comes alongside us in our pain when no one else does!
Oh friend He cares for you, and He cares for me. If His eye is on the sparrow, well then, I know He watches me!
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