A few weeks ago my car clicked over from 99999 kms to 100 000kms. I took my son and friends for a drive up the road to witness this significant event. They duly videoed it and hoorayed satisfactorily at the appropriate moment. And then almost immediately commented to themselves that that was the most anticlimactic thing they had witnessed for a long time! I agreed on one level because the actual click from 99999 to 100000 representing 1000 metres is a very small distance and is soundless and unnoticeable, but in another sense that click represents thousands of kilometres of life travelled in the last 5 years. Driving to work, visits to family and events, the transport of people and things, all mostly very ordinary things and days, and the car or method of transport possibly the most ordinary of all.
Sometimes we can feel like our lives are a series of clicks of putting one foot after another, one kilometre after another and that even milestones, when we come to them are anticlimactic and disappear into the ordinariness of life.
But God does not see our lives this way. Everything in and about our lives is precious and has eternal significance to God. This is evident in the psalms and in Jesus’ sayings in the gospels (Matt 10:30-31) and is embodied by Jesus’ incarnation, life, death and resurrection. I encourage you to read Psalm 139 if you haven’t recently and be reminded of just how much God cares for you and everything about you.
Psalm 139:5, 17-18
You go before me and follow me.
You place your hand of blessing on my head.
How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.
They cannot be numbered!
I can’t even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up,
you are still with me!