Shaq Never Thinks About Me

When I was a kid I collected cards.  I had some baseball cards, a few football cards and hundreds of basketball cards.  Now, I enjoyed football and I really liked baseball but basketball cards were my thing.  In fact, I still have an album on a shelf in my house.  I had hundreds of cards but my favorites made it into this album.  I spent hours arranging the cards in the album by team.  When a trade would occur or a free agent would go elsewhere I would change my album.

I not only arranged the album by team but I scoured over the backs of them.  I looked at the stats of these players.  I memorized their heights.  I knew each of their alma maters.  I didn't have any dreams of being a sports broadcaster then, but if Bob Costas got sick the NBA on NBC could have gone on with me on the mic.

I had a lot of thoughts about these players.  I especially could tell you about Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway, Shaquille O'Neil and Michael Jordan.  My mind joyfully went to their bios on the cards to have another look.

While I had a lot of thoughts about these players none of them had a single thought about me.

Ask Michael Jordan who Matt Ray is and he'll have no idea.  Ask Penny Hardaway what my height and alma mater is and he won't have a clue.  Ask Shaq what he thinks about me and the word "nothing" would be honest.

Yet God, the Creator of all the universe, thinks about me more than I'll ever know.

"How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!  How vast is the sum of them!  If I would count them, they are more than the sand." Psalm 139:17-18a

God thinks vast numbers of thoughts about me!  Yahweh's thoughts about me number the grains of sand!

If Penny Hardaway or Michael Jordan or Shaq told me they had one thought about me I would be thrilled.  If I got one note from one of them saying they were thinking of me, how excited I would be.  But the greatest of the great, the Almighty God, the maker of the sun and every one of the Phoenix Suns, thinks thousands upon thousands of thoughts about me and He's given me the note to tell me that.

"... in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.  How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!  How vast is the sum of them!  If I would count them, they are more than the sand!"  Psalm 139:16b-18a

How great it is to know that God thinks thoughts about you!  He knows you so intimately.  He loves you deeply.  You are running through His mind. 

Ponder this truth and let it lead you to worship today.