Owen, almost 17 months old discovering the wide open desert, those innumerable grains of sand (Hebrews 11:12); for me a picture of vast.
“How precious to me are your thoughts O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.”
Psalm 139:17, 18
I wonder what is going through Owen’s mind as he stands on this vast sea of sand. Is he overwhelmed?
I imagine at 17 months his thoughts aren’t so deep as to compare this desert with God’s thoughts for him. But we, with a few more years to our names can be overwhelmed with not only the vastness of God’s thoughts about us, also overwhelmed with the vastness of God’s love toward us.
Eugene Peterson’s rendition of verses 17 and 18 reads, “Your thoughts – how rare, how beautiful! God, I’ll never comprehend them! I couldn’t even begin to count them – any more than I could count the sand of the sea.”
I agree. I’ll never comprehend them. I don’t even want to! God is so much bigger than my thoughts.
God invites us to live with expectancy; to live with trust. My desire is that will characterize our lives trusting the vastness of his wisdom; trusting the vastness of his grace; trusting the vastness of his kindness; trusting the vastness of his love.
The virgin birth or the resurrection will never make sense apart from trusting the vastness of God’s love. Or how we have experienced God’s vast work in our own lives.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.”
Proverbs 3:5
God, I pray, would you help us to live in expectancy today; live with trust today; live focusing on the vastness of your love. Amen.
Stuart Townend penned these words, taking us from the cradle to the resurrection, testifying to the vastness of God’s love. Let’s live with expectancy in 2022, the expectancy of experiencing God’s love. You can listen here.
How deep the Father’s love for us,
How vast beyond all measure,
That He should give His only Son …
Copyright, Sue Tell, December 2021