Faith & Doubt
I believe God runs the universe, but I cannot believe he is interested in my small daily problems. Why would he bother with mine?
“And she called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?”
Hagar is a pregnant slave woman who has run into the desert to escape her mistress, with no legal standing and nobody out looking for her. She becomes the first person in scripture to give God a name, and the name she chooses is about being noticed. The Bible spends a whole chapter on someone that household would have counted as nobody.
“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.”
Jesus is briefing his disciples before sending them into towns where some of them will be arrested, and this is the reassurance he chooses. He picks the cheapest bird in the market and the least significant detail of a human body. The logic runs from small to large: if that level of detail is tracked, nothing in your ordinary week is beneath notice.
A path forward
Pray about something genuinely small this week: a conversation you are dreading, a bill, a sore back. Testing this is more useful than debating it.
Keep a short running list of small answered prayers and specific provisions for one month. Most people underestimate the number because nothing ever gets written down.
Tell one friend about a small thing you are worried about. Learning that ordinary troubles are welcome to other people makes it easier to believe they are welcome to God.
Closing verse
“Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.”
- Psalm 139:3
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