“My thoughts concerning you Are more than the sands of the sea They are more than the stars in the sky If they could be numbered. As the heavens are above the earth So are my ways above your ways Arise my love, my fair one And come away with me.”
This song is taken from Psalm 139:17-18. This scripture has been on my mind for days.
A couple of years ago my daughter did a Sunday School devotional with my grandboys based on this passage. With the children’s help, she created an edible, visual lesson about God’s thoughts toward us. She gave each boy a package of graham crackers which they smashed up into a sand-like consistency with wooden spoons. She helped them arrange the crackers in a pie plate. Then she added some pre-made blue Jello into the pan on one side to represent water. Once that was in place the boys added Swedish Fish to the “water.”
She asked the boys if they could count the number of “grains of sand” to which they both exclaimed, “Nooo! Impossible.”
“Okay then,” she said. “Take a handful out of the plate and put it on the table. Can you count those?” Once again they repeated an emphatic “No!”
“Hmm…well, how about this…how about you take just a pinch and try counting that?” Little boy fingers pinched the cracker crumbs excitedly and dumped them out on a separate area of the table. “One, two, three, four….we still can’t count them. There are too many!”
My daughter opened her bible to Psalm 139 and began to read. “How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.”
She pointed out to them that there are many sandy beaches in this world. It would be impossible to try and count the number of grains of sand, even on just one beach, say nothing of all of them combined. We can’t even count a pinch full! But the bible says that God’s thoughts about us are more than the sands of the seas.
Although this was a preschool/kindergarten age lesson, it spoke volumes to me. When I thought about it in those simple terms I gained a broader understanding of my value to God and how much I am on his mind.
I thought about my own children, now grown and moved away from home. I think about them too many times in one day to try and count. And the many times that I do think of them don’t even come close to the number of thoughts our Heavenly Father has toward us.
What a wonderful, loving, caring, nurturing God we have! How would you feel if you knew there was someone out there who never thought about him/her self but was always thinking of you? I think that would make my heart skip a beat. But we often don’t even consider God’s unending thoughts for us. Or if we do we take it for granted.
As we approach the Passover season may we ponder his great love and his thoughts toward us.
