I have a vivid memory of walking in every day and seeing that poster... but only until recently, after I've been out of his classroom for going on 2 years now... am I really letting that sink in.
What if we all lived that way?
What if we all thought that way?
I could describe an object to you in vivid detail: A rather large, extremely heavy, all black... with two very small tan stripes running down both sides, awkwardly shaped, but very powerful object. It cost me a lot of money, and continues to cost me a lot of money on an almost daily basis.
Good details.
But those details are meaningless unless I first told you that it was my family's new car.
Details are useless, meaningless, completely un-necessary... unless we first know what it is that we are talking about.
God thought out everything around us. He spoke and it was.
And what do we do?
We specialize, build our whole lives, careers, and activities around things in this world... details.
I want to know God's thoughts.
There's some power in that quote... I think Mr. Einstein was on to something... this is the man after all who spent the majority of his life figuring out the physics and workings of the world and the universe around us.
And in essence he calls it all meaningless unless he first could know God's thoughts.
What are God's thoughts?
"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11 NKJV
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. -Isaiah 55:8-9
The closest we can get to God's thoughts are by reading and understanding His written Word.
And we know from John, that God's Word, isn't JUST the Bible... but that God's Word is a being, the person of Jesus Christ.
Hebrews tells us that the word is living and active. Sharper than any double edged sword.
I don't think it's coincidental, that John saw Jesus holding a sword in Revelation.
Jesus is the Word.
Hold that thought for a second.
Switching gears before we get back to that, I want to talk about something else.
Love.
The Bible talks about love being the most powerful, most important 'thing' we could possess.
More than faith... and we know how much Jesus talked about faith.
More than hope... and we know how much the apostles talked about hope.
When you experience love...
When you fall in love... it's a crazy feeling isn't it?
And I'm not speaking from much experience but rather what I've seen and heard. (I'm far from an expert.)
But when you fall in love that person steals something from you... you can't stop thinking about them... they overwhelm your thoughts, you want to do everything and anything just to be with that person.
Love makes people do crazy things.
You don't get upset with their imperfections, you actually find them funny, or even attractive. You want to be the first person there for them when they need someone to confide in or just cry to. You want to be the first person they go to... you want them to be comfortable around you. In any situation. In any circumstance.
The LORD says:
"My thoughts and my ways
are not like yours.
Just as the heavens
are higher than the earth,
my thoughts and my ways
are higher than yours.
"Rain and snow fall from the sky.
But they don't return
without watering the earth
that produces seeds to plant
and grain to eat.
That's how it is with my words.
They don't return to me
without doing everything
I send them to do." -Isaiah 55:8-11 (CEV)
God's thoughts, God's words concerning us don't return to him empty... they fulfill everything he set them to do.
Jesus came to show us the Way... and He never stopped loving.
God tells us how much he loves us.
He tells us He is thinking about us.
From the moment we were conceived, until life's last breath.
O Lord, you have examined my heart
and know everything about me.
You know when I sit down or stand up.
You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.
You see me when I travel
and when I rest at home.
You know everything I do.
You know what I am going to say
even before I say it, Lord.
You go before me and follow me.
You place your hand of blessing on my head.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too great for me to understand!
I can never escape from your Spirit!
I can never get away from your presence!
If I go up to heaven, you are there;
if I go down to the grave, you are there.
If I ride the wings of the morning,
if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
even there your hand will guide me,
and your strength will support me.
I could ask the darkness to hide me
and the light around me to become night—
but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day.
Darkness and light are the same to you.
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.
How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.
They cannot be numbered!
I can’t even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up,
you are still with me! -Psalm 139:1-18 (NLT)
We can't number His thoughts about us... they are constant, always, even as we sleep... even when we first awake. Read that again. Do you see how much God thinks about you? Do you understand what that means?
We were created in God's image, we share a lot of the basic characteristics of God, we were created to live like Him... when we accept Christ, the Spirit begins to transform us... we put away the desires of the flesh, we begin to crave the things that are of God. We become sanctified... changed, changing to be changed... and will be transformed on that glorious day to be just like Him for all of eternity.
God is crazy in love with us... he continues to think about us, always, non-stop. And his thoughts are of peace, to give us a hope and a future.
Do we want to know God's thoughts?
Or are we still craving our details of nothingness?
God wants us to know His thoughts, He wants us to begin to think of Him as our groom, our lover, the only one who will fulfill every hole, every need, everything we could ever need to live, and live abundantly.
The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. -Exodus 3:7
He is concerned over our suffering too.
He sees.
He hears.
Our slave drivers... our flesh desires.
And He is concerned over our suffering, whether we brought onto ourselves or whether we were 'innocent' bystanders.
His promise holds true:
God never fails.
God's thoughts never fail.
God's love never fails.
When we make our mistakes, our sins, when we fall back into our total depravity apart from Him... when we move away from Him...
He runs to us.
He wants to be the first person we go to, He wants to be our comforter, our healer, our redeemer, our closest and best friend.
That's how he wants us to think of Him.
Those are His thoughts.
Tenth Avenue North, my favorite band, and the inspiration behind the title of this blog, wrote a song called, 'Beloved'
I think it fits rather well here:
