I am important

At last count some 7.1 billion people were alive and kicking on this planet. That means that a little over 19 million of us celebrate a birthday every day! That is a lot of candles! It is hard to imagine 7.1 billion people. I get overwhelmed with the crowd at the mall on a slow day. I can’t envision millions of people, much less billions. My mind becomes filled with a sea of nameless faces and then the circuits start to overheat and I have to shut it down. It is simply too much to comprehend.

Perhaps it is my inability to envision billions of people which makes it difficult for me to grasp how God could keep up with us all. My circuits overheat after just a few seconds of imagining a sea of people, but then I can shut it off. God sees it all the time. He sees the swelling masses. He hears their clamoring and their cries. He observes the goings and comings of us all. It has to look like one big traffic jam. I know it sure feels that way. I am certain that he sees it all but how in the world does he keep up with it? Billions of conversations, billions of activities, billions of thoughts and all of that happened just as I wrote this sentence. Wait! I feel my brain getting hot again.

OK. I’m better. Even if God could keep up with it all, why would he want to do so? Why would you want to keep up with billions of conversations, billions of activities, billions of thoughts? Maybe more accurately, why would he want to keep up with me? Why would God, out of billions of things going on, want to pay attention to me? Why would he want to pay attention to you? We are a couple of faces in a sea of people. We wouldn’t be missed if our faces went away. No one except maybe the person standing next to us would ever notice, and they probably wouldn’t care, not if they were standing next to 7 billion other people. Are you kidding? Their thought would have to be, “How are we going to do lunch like this?”

I can’t fathom keeping up with 7.1 billion people so I really struggle to wrap my little noodle around God keeping up with me. It seems like sheer numbers overwhelm the possibility. Even if God gave me and everyone else one second of his undivided attention it would mean that God would get around to each of us about once every 225 years or so. Even if God could give me his undivided attention, why would he want to do so? There are so many people who lead much more exciting lives. I have not done anything famous and I try really hard to avoid the infamous stuff. I haven’t invented anything. I don’t do stunts of strength or daring, mostly because I don’t do heights. I can’t say I have anything that sticks out about me or sets me apart. So why would God pay attention?

And yet he does. As I have walked this planet, I have come to an important realization: God pays attention to me. He sees the crowd and he sees me in it. He hears the cries of the masses and he hears my particular cry within it. He knows where I am, what I am doing, and he meets me there. I see it in the way he answers my prayers, in the discoveries that God has preceded, in the realizations that God is with me and lavishing his love on me in the most mundane of activities. For some reason, in some way, God keeps up with me which leads me to one simple conclusion. I am important. If to no one else, I am important to God and I know this because he keeps up with me. I don’t know it because I read about it. I don’t know it because someone told me. I know it because I have experienced God’s care and concern as one who stands in the great sea of 7.1 billion. In that sea I am waving and I know that God is waving back.

A fellow traveler,

Blake

What’s my next step?

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of handing off faith in your family.

Hand off a Christ-centered identity: Identity is something we give to our children. As parents, we have the choice to hand off a Christ-centered or world-centered identity. One way we can do this is by being intentional about providing our children with opportunities to meet with God in an experiential way. In these experiences, they learn first-hand how God feels about them. This week, consider doing something outside with your children such as going for a walk. At some point, preferably before or after the activity, provide a time in which you and your children sit in silence with God. Encourage them to be still so that they might know and experience God (Psalm 46.11). Talk about how this feels for them and what is easy or difficult. Over time, these intentional opportunities will build a repository of experiences with God as well as provide a training ground for your children in how to approach God.

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of deepening your own faith.

Spend time experiencing God: Our identity in Christ is often shaped more by our experience of God than our knowledge about him. This week, consider setting aside two or three times to be with God in an experiential manner. This will differ for every person and depend somewhat on how God has made you. We usually do this best in activities or experiences where we feel the most alive and at peace. This might be anything from sitting in silence, to taking pictures, to going for a run. Whatever this might be for you, consider doing it with God and God alone. Be with him in the experience. Seek to feel his pleasure and love wash over you as you engage in the activity with him. Thank him for his presence with you. This is not something we can do just once. In this we are building a relationship with God. Therefore, we must learn and grow in the relationship by making this practice a part of our lives. The more you engage God in this way, the more you fill your life with experiences that affirm he loves you with a never-ending, unstopping, always-and-forever love.