Devotion 30
The Hairs on My Head
We were working at the farm Saturday — a beautiful mid-70s late February day. Jim tackled some fencing with grandson Drew, and I worked on the pond area with grandson Derek.
Derek and I envisioned the area bursting with color from the flowers and trees we'd plant. It would be a perfect place to relax on a day like this one.
The scene was in such contrast to Tuesday when we fought a life and death battle to save a calf and its mother. Here is part of what I wrote after that experience.
"Forget everything you've heard. Veterinary medicine includes more than cozy domestic pets with their special diets, personal psychologists, special cemeteries, and individual burial plots with tombstones.
"It's a different story for farm animals.
"At 8:45 on Tuesday, the vet drove into the field and down the hilly incline to Juno. One of the calf's legs was tucked back and hung up on the pelvic bone, he learned.
"Then the horror began. The just-above-freezing temperature rose for the vet as he reached into the cow and pulled on the calf over and over. Soon his jacket came off. The chains came out to secure the feet so he could get a better grip.
"The tug of war continued: a little progress and then retreat when the pressure was removed. The perspiration dripped off the vet's forehead and ran down his nose onto the ground....
"Finally, the calf was pulled free. Huge — about 120 pounds, the third largest the vet had seen this year. It was beautiful and it was dead. Juno lay exhausted beyond words.
"An hour and fifteen minutes had passed since the beginning of the tug of war....
"If we lived in a perfect world, the calf would have been the right size, its leg wouldn't have bent under and become caught on the pelvis, and the calf would have slid effortlessly from the womb.
"But those days passed along with life in the Garden of Eden."
So the contrast on this Saturday was stark. A bird flitted by full of song and in no immediate danger from the cats. The dream of a peaceful retreat was foremost in my mind.
Then the birdsong pierced my consciousness, and I remembered that:
God sees even one sparrow fall.*
I am of greater value to God than a sparrow.**
He saw the struggle in the pasture on Tuesday morning. Sad as it was and helpless as we felt, we were not alone. He saw my emotional struggle as we leaned into Juno to comfort her. He saw the sadness of all our hearts over the loss of that beautiful calf.
But He doesn't just value me as a possession or one of a total number in the universe. He also knows and cares about me. I know because every hair on my head is numbered.*** This isn't some generalization or estimate based on the average. Every single hair on my head has a number.
Does that sound like a God who doesn't care?
Oh, He cares, all right.
He watches and responds to my every overture toward Him. The more I draw near to Him, the more He touches my life in ways that I recognize more and more readily.
In The Christian Daily Planner there is this quote for March 1st: "God's very nature of goodness motivates Him to give good gifts and to give them and give them and give them."****
* Matthew 10:29
** Matthew 10:31
*** Matthew 10:30, Luke 12:7
****Charles Stanley in The Christian Daily Planner 2000, March 1st entry. Nashville, Tennessee: J. Countryman, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc. 1999.
For Further Consideration:
Matthew 10:24-33
Luke 12:1-12
Luke 15
His Eye Is On The Sparrow
I sing because I'm happy; I sing because I'm free;
For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He cares for me.
Verses:
Why should I be discouraged? Why should the shadows fall?
Why should my heart be lonely and long for heaven and home?
When Jesus is my portion, my consistent friend is He;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He cares for me,
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He cares for me.
Let not your heart be troubled; His tender word I hear;
And resting on His goodness, I lose my doubt and fears.
Tho' by the path He leadeth, but one step I may see:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He cares for me,
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know H cares for me.
Whenever I am tempted, whenever clouds arise,
When songs give place to sighing, when hope within me dies,
I draw the closer to Him; from care He sets me free.
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He cares for me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He cares for me.
Words by Mrs. C. D. Morris
Music by Charles H. Gabriel
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