I like to daydream. Sometimes it’s more that I imagine myself in much more comedic or glamorous moments than doing dishes, but mostly, it’s making the housework much more comedic or glamorous. Picture it: kiddos running around, crazy, loud, and feral, I have one hand stirring dinner behind me on the stove and one hand deep in dishwater suds, I’m somehow typing on my laptop, my hair is piled high on my head and extremely disheveled (the word dish is in that word – can’t be a coincidence). I throw my hands up – soapy water going everywhere – and yell, are you not entertained?
I understand that not everyone will get that movie reference (Gladiator, 2000), and my doing housework with this movie line on loop really has no comparison to the movie plot line. But there are times that I feel that I’m in a fight that I cannot win. There’s always a dish, there’s always at least one article of dirty clothes, there’s always a meal to plan (does anyone else struggle with figuring out what to eat every single night?), and there’s always someone who needs or wants something from me. It’s a struggle at times to find the calm in the weather of life.
Even though I know, I often struggle with having the confidence that God sees me. Not only that He sees me, but that He’s with me and for me. Right there with me while I’m pulling off a complex juggling act that most would simply call motherhood. Does He even have time for those little things I pray about when I feel like I’m hanging by a thread?
You know what I’m talking about – you wake up at 3 in the morning to a kiddo running a high temperature. Lord, please heal them… Or when your job is being eliminated. God, please help me find something else… And a favorite of mine typically goes back to car troubles. God, how am I going to pay for the repairs this time? There are other, not so extreme, instances of asking God for help. The Creator of all things… asking Him to direct some of His attention to helping us pass a test, to not bomb during a public speaking engagement, or simply praying that dinner is edible.
Do we have the confidence that God not only sees all this, but that He cares about it, too?
Back in 2017, I was not in a healthy place. I was drinking (a lot), but in the times that I was sober, I kept being reminded of Matthew 6:25-33. All the things I worried about, having all that we needed, was wrapped up in those verses. Was I earning my keep? Didn’t matter to God. I was a drunk – surely that made a difference on whether God took care of me or not. I was so taken with this passage that I got a tattoo to remind me in case I forgot (y’all, I was a mess back then).
Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father keeps feeding them. Are you not worth much more than they? Matthew 6:26 AMPC
Do you see it? There’s no requirement on the birds of the air – God keeps on feeding them. They don’t earn their keep cleaning house or wrangling children, they don’t have a 401k, they don’t have a grocery budget… they may not even be the best-looking or sweetest-sounding bird. But my heavenly Father keeps feeding them (look at it – it says yet your heavenly Father keeps feeding them). They aren’t even His kiddos – they’re just the pets!
But we’re His kiddos. We are worth much more.
A pastor I follow recently solidified this even more, this truth that we are worth so much more than we realize and valued beyond our human ability to understand. Let me paint another picture for you: Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords – the Great I Am and Creator of all things – He’s gone through the beatings, being whipped and spat on, He’s been crowned with thorns and nailed to the cross. Scripture tells us that He didn’t even look like a human (Isaiah 52:14).
In this moment, Jesus saw fit to take care of His mom.
Standing near the cross were Jesus’ mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary (the wife of Clopas), and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother standing there beside the disciple he loved, he said to her, “Dear woman, here is your son.” And he said to this disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from then on this disciple took her into his home. John 19:25-27 NLT
This clearly shows that our earthly needs and well-being are important to our heavenly Father. He sees; He cares. And He takes it further and provides. Even when He was in agony and about to take His last breath, He saw fit to take care of His mom’s earthly needs. Her eternal well-being was already in process… but Jesus wasn’t satisfied with that. He didn’t stop with saving her spirit and soul – this being recorded helps us to see that our physical well-being matter to God, too.
Are you not entertained? Isn’t this good news?
You don’t have to worry that you’re not tithing enough, spending a specific amount of time feeding the poor, volunteering in the church nursery (it’s really not that bad), or attending church every time the doors are open. Those things are good for you (and others), but God doesn’t withhold His attention and love and blessings based on what you do for Him. If it was ever based on what we could do, then Jesus would never have needed to come.
God is pleased with you. God is delighted in you. There is nothing you can do – no extreme juggling act – that could make God love you more. Before Jesus did any miraculous work, God made a statement about His boy.
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And immediately coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens opening, and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon Him; and a voice came from the heavens: “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.” Mark 1:9-11 NASB
Jesus had done nothing to earn God’s approval or love but simply exist. And God was pleased with Him. We are deeply, profoundly, extremely loved (that’s what beloved means) by our heavenly Father. That’s just a part of the much more.
You may be thinking that all of this is interesting and sounds nice, but that Jesus is God and also His Son, so of course Jesus is deeply, profoundly, and extremely loved by God. While we are definitely not Jesus, scripture does tell us that we are children of God (John 1:12). We’re heirs of God and co-heirs with Jesus – adopted into the family so that we have the right to call God, Father (Romans 8:15-17).
I want to take all of this and walk into each moment with the confidence that God is for me, that He sees me, that He’s pleased with me, and that He absolutely cares about the little things. He cares when I’m feeling overwhelmed and running low on patience. And He’s always ready and desiring to give so much more than I can even ask, think, or imagine (Ephesians 3:20-21).