I have a confession to make. I love writing devotionals; I really do. But sometimes, when it comes time to write one, I sit down at the computer, and I think to myself, I have absolutely no thoughts today. I can’t think of a single thing to write. At those times, I ask God what He wants His people to hear. Then I write that.
Today was a little bit different. This time, even before I had a chance to say “Dear God”, God spoke to me. Even when you don’t have thoughts, He said (not in an audible voice, but in my spirit), I always have thoughts. I am always thinking about you.
Then, He brought Psalm 139:17 to mind. This verse appears only 3 verses after the verse that tells us we are fearfully and wonderfully made. It says, “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” Read the passage in context, and you will see that in this case, His thoughts are about us.
First, let’s look at the “how vast is the sum of them” part. Most of us don’t realize how much God thinks about us. We tend to assume that because we don’t always think about Him very often, He doesn’t think about us frequently, either. That assumption is wrong. The verse says that God’s thoughts toward us are vast in number. Vast. That’s more than 5. More than 100. More even than a million. Vast. An incomprehensible number.
Sure, we think, He thinks about me a lot when I’ve messed up. But those aren’t the kind of thoughts this passage is talking about. The Psalmist wrote this entire section because He was so overwhelmed at how much God loves us. He didn’t say, “God really loves us. He thinks irritated thoughts about us most of the time, but He really, really loves us.” No, God thinks so many loving thoughts toward us that we can’t even count them all. It’s such a big number the writer of the psalm didn’t even want to limit it by putting a number on it.
Now, let’s look at the first part of the verse. “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!” Are they really? I think most of the time, they’re not. That’s because we don’t really get it. We don’t truly understand how God lovingly thinks of us all day long, every day. How He’s in love with us. If we really grasped that, His thoughts would, indeed, be very precious to us. After all, what could be better than to know that God thinks loving thoughts about us all day long, so many that we can’t even count them?
I have a specific reason for telling you the process I went through in writing this devotional. My reason is this: I want you to know that God was thinking of you in telling me what to write today. You. I didn’t have any thoughts of my own until He filled my mind with today’s theme. I believe this is His extra way of emphasizing to you how much He is, indeed, thinking about you. He thought about you and planned something specific for you to read today because He loves you.
So how do you respond when faced with a love like that? I suggest you spend some time with Him today, thinking about Him. He’s always thinking about you; it would be an awesome, loving response on your part for you to reciprocate out of love. How long should your time be? I don’t know, but I do know this: God is the Lover of your soul. Spend some time with the One who, as the song says, “knows you best and loves you most.”
Psalm 139:17—How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!