"Somebody Cares"

"Somebody Cares"  

      When Adam and Eve sinned, they not only hid from God in the trees of the garden.  They also figuratively hid from each other by making themselves aprons composed of fig leaves (Genesis 3:7-8).  Moreover, Scripture does not indicate any concern for each other despite their awareness that something ominous had occurred in both their hearts and lives.

    God, conversely, came looking for the man and woman He had created.  "Where art thou, Adam?" He asked, not because He did not know where the man was.  The Lord rather to show Adam that hiding from both God and Eve revealed the nature of the spiritual and moral cataclysm that had taken place.  The Lord necessarily banished the man and his wife from Eden, but He also showed His compassion by replacing the woefully inadequate leafy garb with coats of skins obtained from an animal who died at the hand of God in order to make provision (Genesis 3:21).  Somebody in the garden, not Adam or Eve, but Somebody cared about humanity and the horror of its fall from the first estate of Divine provision and purpose.

    "The Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy" (James 5:11).

    Our tears do not fall unnoticed by our Heavenly Father.  "Put my tears into Thy bottle.  Are they not in Thy book?" (Psalm 56:8).  No words can express how completely God enters into our sorrows.  Far more than earthly parents who would rather suffer than see their children hurt, our Lord is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (Hebrews 4:15).  Even more, the Lord Jesus Christ became for us the sacrificial Lamb whose death provides not mere "coats of skins," but the garment of righteousness, redemption, and restoration. Through Christ, our Father lovingly confirmed His concern regarding our greatest need.  Thereby we can be sure of His caring in all things that touch our hearts, and that touch His heart even more.  "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32).

    Perhaps just now, a thorn painfully pricks our hearts.  We may have people in our lives who care, but human compassion can only go so far.  God's caring, however, reaches into the very depth of those who look to Him through their tears in the faith that believes with the Psalmist, "Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: He is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous" (Psalm 112:4).  In a sad garden long ago, Somebody cared.  That same One still cares when darkness, sadness, and bewilderment descend upon the garden of our hearts.  By nature of one "full of compassion," the cares of others are God's cares.  Just as He calls us to "weep with them that weep," so might we see God's tears falling with our own when the thorns of life pierce us (Romans 12:15).  Yes, Somebody cares, Somebody who can clothe us with comfort just as He clothed us with righteousness when we first believed. 

"When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up" (Psalm 27:10).

Weekly Memory Verse 

    "When Thou saidst, Seek ye My face; my heart said unto Thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek." 

(Psalm 27:8)