Watch This!

 

“I will sing to the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. May my meditation be pleasing to him, as I rejoice in the Lord.”

—Psalm 104: 33-34

“Watch this!”

If you stay around children long enough, you’ll hear that call. They want to be noticed, to be thought of as funny, or cute, or smart, or adventurous. In my experience, it seems that the children who get very little attention from adults crave it the most.

My sister and I would often put on “shows” for our Grandma. She lived in her own side of our large farm house, so it was easy to call on her to watch our silly dances, or songs, or whatever. She was always the first person—and usually the only one—who bought lemonade at our stand by the road. She noticed us and applauded. She was our go-to audience.

God created us as part of a community. Even as He belongs as a member of the Trinity, and all members of the Holy Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—fellowship and share love between them, we need to feel that we matter to others and to Him. Even Jesus craves our applause. Think of it! In John 17:24, Jesus prayed:

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”

The Psalmist in Psalm 8:4 asks the question:

What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?

It seems incredulous that such a great God would watch us, and pay attention to little ol’ us!

In the Sacred Romance, John Eldredge writes that God’s intent from the beginning was for intimacy with us:

When we turned our back on him he promised to come for us. He sent personal messengers; he used beauty and affliction to recapture our hearts. After all else failed, he conceived the most daring of plans. Under the cover of night he stole into the enemy’s camp incognito, the Ancient of Days disguised as a newborn…God risked it all to rescue us. ¹

God has done more than send us an annual birthday card or a present from time to time. He gave us Himself and planned a grand rescue of us so that He would be in fellowship with us for all eternity. We don’t have to call to Him, “Watch this!” We can be sure that He not only watches us, but cares for us, and wants our fellowship in this life and the next!

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1 Curtis, Brent and John Eldridge. The Sacred Romance. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, © 1997. Pp. 87 and 88.