“How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!” (Ps 139.17).
So often, believers deal too little with the infinitude of God. The power of His might and the majesty of His limitless strength are all too often unconsidered by the very people for whom He has exercised them. Hence the tendency, like Israel in the wilderness, to limit “the Holy One of Israel” (Ps 78.41).
His thought of redeeming us was a great thought; His thought of making us “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1.4) by the regeneration of the Holy Ghost is a great thought; His thought of bringing us to glory to enjoy Him fully and for ever is a great thought. All these thoughts of God are as great as they are precious, and as precious as they are great.
“O God, when I read Thy heart in the cross, in the wounds, in the tears, in the anguish, in the blood of Thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, how precious are Thy thoughts unto me! Thoughts that planned and accomplished my redemption, by an expedient so vast, and at a cost so precious.”
Blessed is it to trace a Father’s thoughts of us in our providential mercies; to feel that this good has come, this mercy has been bestowed, this table spread, this want supplied, this pressure met, this evil averted, by God’s providential thought of us. Oh, how precious are these thoughts to one who lives upon a Father’s bounty, who can trace a Father’s hand, feel a Father’s heart, and hear a Father’s voice in response to the petition “Give us this day our daily bread” (Mt 6.11).
There is another peculiar stage of Christian experience in which the soul experiences the preciousness of God’s thoughts. We refer to the season of mental disquietude and depression; it may be of despondency and despair. Oh, is it not then soothing and precious to be reminded that your heavenly Father has thoughts of you; your High Priest in Heaven has thoughts of you; the Holy Spirit – the Comforter - has thoughts of you?
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil” (Jer 29.11).
“Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me” (Isa 49.16).
(Author unknown: from ‘Threshed Wheat’, July 1930)
