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Reflections

Why Does God Bother?

Recently I attended a concert by the local symphony orchestra featuring The Planets, a composition by British composer Gustav Holst, completed in 1916. NASA pictures of planets were shown as the orchestra performed.

If you have heard this music, you know it is intensely emotional, rising from almost inaudible tones to majestic crescendo and falling back again. The musical suite ended with accompaniment by female voices in dissonant tones, creating an atmosphere of mystery at the wonders of outer space.

Listening to the music, while viewing pictures of colorful planets with their mystifying formations, left me with feeling as David must have when he wrote Psalm 8. Eugene Peterson paraphrased the passage this way:

I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings

Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way? (Psalm 8:3,4, The Message.)

Why, indeed, does God bother with us? Glimpsing the immensity of space gives an awareness of how small human beings are. Add to this spatial insignificance the dimension of time. If the created order is as old as it seems, the time span of our lives is as a nanosecond. Is it presumptuous for us to believe God pays attention to tiny, short-lived creatures in the here and now?

As we continue reading David’s majestic psalm, we hear him affirm mankind’s significance:

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor (Psalm 8:5, NIV).

If we believe the biblical account, we believe the God who created this universe also created mankind. And though we are seemingly small creatures who habituate only one planet, He has given us significance, honoring us and giving us purpose.

But knowing this only answers questions as to whom we are, not the original question of “Why does God bother with us?” or “Why does He take a second look our way?” Possibly we could understand why God might be interested in us in the first place because we are His creation. It seems natural for a creative being to be interested in his own handiwork.

But when we read the biblical account of man’s history, we see how recalcitrant man’s heart has been, how he has repeatedly turned his back on God and disobeyed His will. Why, then, would God “give a second look?” The only possible answer is a four-letter word—LOVE.

Paul affirms God’s love to mankind when he writes:

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8, NIV).

God “bothers” because He cares for us. He may have looked at us first because He was pleased with His own creation. But when mankind sinned, He looked a second time in love and compassion. While we were sinners, He made a plan for our redemption.

Paul wrote to the Ephesians similarly of God’s great love and added some information which lets us in on God’s plan for our future. Paul tells us that God saved us

in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:7, NIV).

In the coming ages, God shows off believers as trophies of His grace! I’m not sure what all that means; He might be planning to parade us around the planets! Who knows?

Not only does He have purpose for our future, but He has purpose for us in the present:

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10, NIV).

When you view the vast universe, you see how precisely it flows together. Each part has purpose, whether small as snails or magnificent as planets. When we understand this, we understand our own place in His Kingdom. We don’t know what our future holds, but we know that for the time being, God has a work—a good work—for each of us to do. Maybe it’s time to leave stargazing and get with it!

Points to Ponder:

Where do you fit in to God’s plan for the universe? Have you discovered the good work He has for you to do?

PEGGY MUSGROVE is a licensed Assemblies of God minister. She is also a speaker, freelance writer, author and prayer group leader. Her latest book, Musings of a Maraschino Cherry was released in 2004.. You can visit her at www.musgroveville.com.

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