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God’s thoughts

God’s Precious Thoughts!

by TerryLema

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”  [James 1:17 CSB]

Everything God creates is productive, just, and good. Everything God does has value and loveliness.  He does everything in love and concern for our best and eternal interests. He wants us to flow with the desires of His Holy Spirit so that we will agree with His purpose worked out in our lives.

God never seeks to harm us.  He will, however, not force us to love Him and He’s given us free will to reject Him and will allow us to live (and die) with that choice, But, that has never been His purpose for our eternal good.

One of the most beautiful songs ever written is Psalms 139. Take a moment to read it. One thing you notice immediately is that it contains no negative undertones. It is an entirely positive outpouring of how we are in the care of God – we are remarkably and wondrously made, God is always with us, He knows our deepest thoughts and desires and loves us still!

To me, the most beautiful verses are 17 and 18: “God, how precious your thoughts are to me; how vast their sum is! If I counted them, they would outnumber the grains of sand; when I wake up, I am still with you.”

Our Father is thinking about us all the time. Think about that! God, the Omnipotent One, the All-Knowing One, thinks about us. Of the billions of people alive on this planet now … God thinks about me and you—about each one of us individually. What a remarkable truth.

I sing with the Psalmist … “God, how precious your thoughts are to me!”

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HE KNOWS ME

by TerryLema

I was thinking about the LORD’s thoughts and ways this morning, marveling in His love and kindness to me – despite knowing me so well. “O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.”  [Ps 139:1-3 NKJV]

God has searched me, David wrote. I always picture David lying on the ground looking up at the stars and thinking about God thinking about him. God had searched David, knew his thoughts and path and all his ways.

God has searched me. He knows my thoughts. That both comforts me and sorrows me. I know some of the things I think. I see my arrogance flare, or my pride well up. I know my opinions and sometimes they are not very pretty. Still, He welcomes me.

God comprehends my path. It’s often crooked or rocky. It often deviates from the way God would have me walk. I lose my way at times and wonder how I got where I am. Then my precious Savior is there, guiding me back through the leading of His Spirit within me.

God is acquainted with my ways. My ways … my ways, often, they are not His ways. They are ways prompted by my anxiety or my greed or my lack of understanding. They are ways that are ingrained in me since childhood, my reactions and responses to life. Still, He loves me.

I may not be lying under the stars this morning thinking about God thinking about me – but I am so thankful He knows me, just as I am.

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What are You thinking?

by TerryLema

Political ads are everywhere. You can’t turn around without seeing or hearing one politician or another blather on and on about something. As I listen, I often wonder to myself, “what are you thinking.” It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle you are on, or if you are in the middle, politicians spout ideas that often make no practical sense.

And while on the subject, have you ever watched the media press someone for a response (someone who doesn’t want to give a response)? They can ask the dumbest questions, often repeating over and over what other reporters have asked, or what the interviewee has already said they will not comment on. I wonder, “what are you thinking?”

Having railed on politicians and the media, I must now admit that there is another time when I wonder, “what are You thinking?” That’s when my God is talking, and I must admit that as He told Isaiah, we can’t really understand His ways or His thoughts. “’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,’ says the LORD. ‘For 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 NKJV]

God is God. He is perfect in wisdom, knowledge and holiness. He has perfect foreknowledge, knowing all that can be known. If I could understand His thoughts, or perceive His ways completely, He wouldn’t be any more intelligent than I am – and (said with a smile), we’d all be in big trouble.

It is precisely that we can’t understand Him that makes His thoughts and ways toward us all the more precious. He doesn’t operate on our finite level but is infinite in power and knowledge. So, while it may seem a bit silly to you, this morning I am so thankful that I don’t always understand my blessed LORD but lean on Him by faith through His grace. Amen.

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