God is the God of the detail.

God has a universe to run, a world to oversee, nations to set for rise or fall, kings to establish and despots to depose, yet He is also the God of the sparrows and lilies. He sees not only the big picture of your life,  He is concerned about the smallest piece of the jigsaw of your life, no matter how insignificant it may seem to you. “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?” “Are not the very hairs of your head numbered?” (Mt.10:29-31)

Now it is true that much of our prayers should be concerned about God’s honour and glory, His reign and rule, His kingdom and dominion. He must be glorified, He must be magnified. His honour and praise must be our foremost consideration in all of our prayers.  Yet, there is a place for our supplications, and requests about our needs. The God who feeds the sparrows and adorns the lilies is your God too. “Are you not much more value than many sparrows?” 

It is not by accident that the first miracle Jesus performed, and by it manifested His glory, was to spare the blushes of a bridegroom by turning water into wine at the marriage of that young couple in Cana of Galilee.  It is also not by accident, that the only miracle of Jesus recorded by all four gospel writers was the feeding of five thousand hungry men and women. Jesus cared about the blind man’s eyes, the deaf man’s ears and the lame man’s legs.

His parables reflect His concern about our needs. The lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son. These were losses of varying degrees. For the shepherd his loss was 1%. For the woman it was 10%. For the father it as 50%. For the widow of Nain it was 100%. But no matter how small or great the loss, it matters to Jesus.  God is the God of the detail. Hairs on heads, sparrows that fall, lilies in the field, they all count with Him.

It was the widow woman at the Temple Treasury throwing in her tiny offering of just two mites, that caught Jesus attention. He saw the rich throw in out of their abundance, they had plenty left over, no matter how big their offering was. But of this woman, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more that all; for all these out of there abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.” (Luke 21:1-4)

Jesus’ big sermon was ‘The Sermon on the Mount’ (Matthew Chs.5,6,7.)  This is His small sermon, ‘The Sermon on the Amount’  Dr. W.A. Criswell says this of God, “With one hand He fashions a golden ring six hundred and seventy thousand miles in diameter to swing around Saturn, and with the other He fashions the point of a claw on the foot of a microscopic insect. That is God! One day placing in the universe a blazing sun ninety-three million miles away, and the next day painting the face of a little flower with the colours of His rainbow, and dropping in its chaliced heart a little bit of perfume in order that it might attract an insect to fertilize an ovule! That is God!” God is the God of the detail. 

- Pastor David Goudy