God's Superabundant Grace with a Little Help from Coffee
Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s consent. But even the hairs of your head have all been counted
Matthew 10:29-30 CSB
Can you remember the last time you went to the salon to get your hair done? Maybe it was a simple trim or an overdue highlighting. Getting my hair done always leaves me feeling fresh and new. A good friend of mine dealt with some crazy hair happenings when her hair began to thin and fall out. She went through several different hair styles and cuts in order to survive looking in the mirror while it all worked it self out. She had to use special shampoo and wait and hope that the hormones that were causing this craziness would get back to normal. Basically, the hair on her head was dead and she had to wait for the new growth to take over and catch up. I understand this as I have been bald twice in my life and the waiting can be excruciating. Almost as agonizing as waiting for my coffee to percolate in the morning.
Life can be like this as well. Some days we can feel fresh and new because positive things are taking place in our lives and we are gliding along with a bounce in our curls. These days are like a fresh cup of coffee on a cold winter’s day, warm and comforting. But sometimes our existence can turn and begin to offer cracks and chips like broken, dead hair. It can fall hard onto the floor, crashing and spilling. When we are feeling dead and we feel exhausted, empty, frozen, we have a God to turn to who will intervene with His exceedingly, superabundant, beyond ways to save us. (Ephesians 3:20 CSB)
We are never out of God’s sight. Nothing ever happens to us of which God is unaware. He is there during the times your hair is falling out and the Keurig will not work. In fact, not only does He know what is happening to us, and what is going to happen to us, as well; but the truly amazing thing is that He cares what happens to us. This is His superabundant grace we have been talking about. The sometimes-unbelievable fact is we matter to God, more than we can possibly imagine. He is intensely interested in who we are and in what we’re going through, even down to the seemingly mundane details of our lives. God is watching over you, at all times and in every situation. You can never do anything to remove yourself from God’s care; nor can anyone or anything else ever separate you from it. Matthew 10:29-30 encourages us in this, “Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s consent. But even the hairs of your head have all been counted” (CSB). Jesus was teaching that God, in His sovereignty, controls the timing and circumstances of such unimportant events as the death of a sparrow. At the time of him writing this, sparrows could be bought two for a penny. These were insignificant little creatures that were bought for sacrifice and had no other purpose. Yet, Jesus tells us He would be in control of even these trivial creatures so why wouldn’t He want to govern even the most mundane matters in our we encounter?
Often, though, during moments of pain and darkness we can easily forget what we knew in the light. We tend to forget the superabundant, way beyond/way beyond ways of God and what He is able to do in our uncertain circumstances. In these times we sometimes choose to turn to the world to look for hope and a “fix” for the problems. The issue with this is in the world we are simply a number. We are a bank number, a driver’s license number, a number in line for dinner, an email number or name. But with God, we are a supremely loved individual with a Father who knows every hair on our head. He cares about the little details of each hair and you can be assured He is interested in the big details of our worries as well.
In our fast-paced world we are often being battered by uncaring people, from the time we get up to the time we lie down. We often get the feeling we are living in a time which seems to say, "You don’t matter. You’re just another face in the crowd. If you were wiped off the face of the earth, it would make no difference whatsoever." But that’s a lie. You do matter to God, and you matter tremendously, superabundantly. You matter so much He gave the life of His own Son, Jesus Christ, in order to save you from sin and make you a part of His family. Before this world even existed, God was thinking about you, and preparing for you, and making plans for you. Plans to bless you, plans to call you to Himself. Plans to show His love to you in every possible way, both now and throughout eternity.
Not only does He know us, but He is in complete control of all things. In Matthew 12:24-30 Jesus tells the disciples the parable of the wheat and the weeds. When the weeds grew up in the wheat field the servants wanted to immediately go and pull up the weeds, yet the master told them to let them grow and he would take care of them later. What Jesus was telling them was to not try to step in to take control of the weeds in your life. His plan is to work them out of the ground for you. He wants to be in control of your situations. He wishes for you to let Him take His great big shovel of grace and work the weeds out of the muddy dirt. When we get to a place where we are unbelievably weary, He want us to look for His abundance and allow Him to take control.
You see we don’t have the perspective that God does to see the wheat from the weeds. We can’t see the end of the perfect plan, but He does. He wants us to let the weeds grow until we can see clearly what is happening to us as God works out the best laid plan and turns things around. Once we are able to do this, we can be the wheat God has planted us to be. Let’s go about working to be to be a light for Christ and not put the energy into trying to pluck out all of the weeds. Let’s spend the time putting effort into showing the outside world how well our hair is growing back. Let’s put some muscle into getting that big shock of hair, or wheat, out there for all to see the Glory of Christ which will be what brings us joy, rather than laboring so hard to fix the things we can’t control.
It’s time to settle down and settle in for the long haul and let Christ begin to work out the details that He knows so well; every little hair, every stalk of wheat. He knows all it about and cares so beyond what we can even imagine. He can see the weeds in the wheat and the fractures in the tips of your hair and He will be working out each one when we let Him.
A Prayer For Today
Lord God, as I detangle my hair and begin to see You working in each knot, I praise You for knowing me and loving me. Help me, O Lord, to remain still and faithful to let You be in control of the weeding.
A Challenge for Today
Where is God working superabundantly in your life? Take time to consider where God is working and where you need to let go and let Him be in control. Ask someone to help you remain positive in your situation so you can shine for Christ while he takes care of the weeds.