God cares

Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10).

A Frenchman, imprisoned in a dungeon, seemed to have been forgotten by everyone. In loneliness and despair, he took a stone and scratched these words on the wall of his cell: “Nobody cares.”

One day, a green shoot came through the cracks in the stone floor and began to reach up towards the light coming in through the tiny single window near the ceiling. It continued growing until at last it became a plant with a beautiful blue flower. The prisoner, moved by this gift, scratched out his previous words and above them wrote, “God cares.”

When our days are filled with deadlines and problems, it can be easy to conclude that God has lost interest in us. Where is God, we wonder, when we really need His help? But in a country where movies are filled with flashy special effects, we often fail to see God working quietly in our lives, almost unnoticed. Isn’t it a miracle that you can take a small white pill and your headache goes away? Isn’t it a blessing to have light in your room to study by with only the flip of a switch? Isn’t it a gift from God that you can have fresh flowers to bring fragrance and color into a room that sometimes feels like a prison?

God does not promise to end all your troubles. What He does promise is to strengthen you, to help you, and to give you His support. And God does this in all sorts of ways—through an unexpected phone call from a loved one, the laughter of a child, or a beautiful sunrise. God constantly shows you that He cares in uncountable small ways. But the most important evidence of His love is the fact that He gave up His own beloved Son to suffer and die the death that your sins had deserved. Please join me in praying:

Heavenly Father, we are sorry that so often we turn a blind eye to Your love. You care for us every day, and yet it seems as if all we do is grumble that You haven’t done enough. We thank You that You sent Your Son Jesus to be our Savior, so that our blind ungratefulness can be forgiven. Amen.