In a sea of people, why does God care about me?

(This is a continuation from “On praying ‘in faith’“)

Another form of this is: “Why am I valuable at all?”

There are tons of axes (or red herrings) to this question:

• Do I obey God?
• Do I tell others about God?
• Do I give money to the church?
• Even things like: Am I a contributing member of society?

Good questions, no doubt. But they’re all beside the point.

Because each of these are things I can control.

And if I can control the lever which determines if/how God loves me, then his love is dependent on me.

That last part is really important.

As I think about all the things I’ve screwed up in my life, ‘God’s love being dependent on me’ is not a comforting thought.

But instead, in the Bible, we see the exact opposite picture.

God’s love isn’t at all dependent on me (or you).

Why, for instance, does the Bible have page after page about the Israelites? Because it shows us what God’s love looks like.

Or why did God come as one of us (and during a particularly difficult time)? Because it shows us what God’s love looks like.

These will always be confusing questions until we understand who God is at his core.

As John wrote, “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

Here are a few lines from a psalm (139) I come back to often:

For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.