Job had difficulty understanding why the Creator would be
interested in human beings.  He asked, "What is man that you make so much of him, that you give him so much attention, that you examine him every morning.?
(Job 7:17-18). 

David contemplated the same question. "O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.  You know when I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar.  You discern my going out and my lying down.  You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, O Lord (Psalm 139:1-4). 

Our children are precious to us.  In Luke 11:13 we read, "If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him." 

Soon after moving our young family to the wilds of Alaska, our three-year-old daughter walked bare-footed into hot ashes and severely burned both feet.  It was the time of the "midnight sun" and Mardell was in her pajamas.  By morning her feet were completely blistered and very swollen..

Early the next morning we drove with Mardell out of the mountains to the Fairbanks hospital.  I was suffering right along with my daughter.  The nurse upon seeing the badly blistered feet asked me, "How can we get her pajamas off?"  I quickly responded, "Just get some scissors and cut them off. 

As the nurse returned with a large pair of scissors, Mardell
looked up into my eyes asking, "Are they really going to cut my feet off?"  The poor darling!  Whatever I thought was right, she would accept.  Such trusting confidence! 

These parental analogies help us comprehend how God feels about us.  Today all our children are grown and have grown children.  Still we pray for them every day, and they are never very far from our thoughts. We are vulnerable to their life's physical and spiritual crises. 

Can it be that God actually loves his human family infinitely more than we "being evil" can express to our own flesh and blood?  That's what the Word teaches.

Some readers might doubt that an omnipotent God with no weaknesses and no needs is vulnerable to this kind of vicarious suffering.  We do know that Jesus experienced the broad range of human emotions and then He told Philip, Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9). 

Remember that Jesus was deeply moved in spirit and troubled" when Mary wept over Lazarus. Yes, this is one of the most breathtaking concepts in Divine revelation that God knows each of us personally and that we are in His mind day and night.


by Erwin Bourne
Outreach_amazon@yahoo.com