Today I want to give us all something to meditate on. Do you ever wonder if others think about you? Do you fill their mind, even when you are not with them? Or is it out of sight, out of mind? We often tell others, or others tell us, “You are always on my mind.” But is that really true? There truly are only a few people who I can honestly say are “always” on my mind.   

Now, do you ever wonder if God has you on his mind? Isn’t God busy tending to the needs of the whole of creation? That seems like a big job. Does He really have you and me on his mind all the time? Let us look at the words of Psalm 8 for the answer.

“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place (8:1-3),”

Those three verses tell us of God’s majesty over the heavens and the earth. His glory (splendor) is established, and no enemy can overcome it.     

With that I mind, v.4 is what I want us to mediate on today – despite the smallness of mankind as contrasted against the vastness of all of creation, God is mindful of you and me. If you genuinely allow the power of v.4 (asked in the form of a question by the psalmist) to soak deep into your soul, into every nook and cranny, the struggles of life will somehow seem manageable.

“what is man for that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”

Wow, we fill the mind of God, and He both remembers and looks after us. When I see the words mindful and care for in that verse, it conveys the heart of God, the goodness of God, and extends to all of creation. The beauty of nature we see all around us is just one reminder of how much God cares for us. Let the astonishment that likely overwhelmed the psalmist also astound you! God’s constant love for, and thoughts about, you should overwhelm you. It does me!

(Now finish reading Psalm 8, just five more verses.)

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To me, sailing conjures up an imagine of peacefulness as the boat smoothly sails through the water. The sun would always be shining, the seas would be calm, dolphins would be playfully swimming along the boat, and the winds just enough to blow gently against the sails. In sailing, depending upon the direction of the wind and which direction you want to go, and whether you are sailing upwind (windward) or downwind (leeward), the boat’s sails take on the characteristics of either an airplane wing or a parachute.

In a perfect world, life would also be smooth sailing. But life is not perfect, and it certainly is not smooth sailing. “Out of the blue” sometimes happens, threatening to capsize your boat, messing up your well laid out plans, tossing you and your possessions into the raging seas, and leaving you feeling helpless in the grip of the storm.

Not only does the unexpected happen, but life also gets twisted, it gets made crooked. I have a t-shirt that sums up the story of my life, and I suspect it sums up yours as well. It shows two graphs; What I planned and What happened.

Our efforts to try and figure out that twistedness, to straighten things out, to supply what is lacking, often leaves us exhausted and confused. We just do not always have answers. In the book of Ecclesiastes, we find that very thing – “What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted” (1:15).

Three months ago today, on November 3, we experienced one of those out of the blue, life getting twisted up moments. I suffered a stroke. Until the stroke began, there were no warning signs. Thankfully, my wife got me to the hospital quickly, affording me the ability to receive the clot-busting drug, which breaks up the clot causing the blockage and helps restore blood flow to the brain, lessening damage to the brain. I am getting multiple kinds of therapies and continue to heal and recover. I am currently on short-term disability with the goal of eventually (soon I hope!) returning to some sort of employment. As it was with my prostate cancer diagnosis four years ago, this stroke was out of the blue and it twisted up our well laid out plans.

My recovery prognosis is good, but brain injuries are all unique, and we just do not know what the future holds. While I do not know what will or will not get untwisted, one thing I do know; I am to unfailingly trust God and give him thanks.

Staying in Ecclesiastes, we are told that some things are just not in our control, and we are to accept both prosperity and adversity, knowing God is sovereign over both, without being able to explain just how it all will be worked out. Here is what we read – “Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him” (7:13-14). Those two verses do not say that God initiated my stroke, but what I do believe they do say is that He can use the out of the blue, the unexpected crookedness, to test my faith and grow my faith.

Do I sometimes have moments of worry about what my life post-stroke will look like? Yes, I do. But it is because of God’s unwavering faithfulness to me, even as my ever-growing faith sometimes wavers, that I can live out these words – “He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD” (Psalm 112:7). And these – “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you” (Isaiah 26:3).

So, today, and every day, amid the out of the blue and crookedness of life’s what happened, will you rejoice, pray, give thanks, (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18), trusting that God knows what He is doing?

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If you are reading this post, you have one thing in common with every other human being on the planet. You have a past. By the end of this post, I hope you also know that you also have a future! That past is filled with successes and failures, both big and small. That past is filled with smiles and also with tears. It is filled with things we are glad to share with others, and it is filled with things we keep hidden from others, or at least “hidden” until the paparazzi or TMZ show up. Did you know that TMZ, the celebrity news website, actually stands for thirty-mile zone, which represents the studio zone within a 30-mile radius centered at the intersection of West Hollywood Boulevard and North La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles?

You have heard it said that in life there are no do-overs. Well, that is true for all but one hour every year. When we turn the clocks back one hour each fall (this year on November 6), technically for that one hour, you and I could do-over what we had originally done in that hour, since the hour between one and two o’clock occurs twice.

In reality, we cannot go back and do-over. Yesterday is gone, it is history, and history cannot be changed. What is in the past is truly in the past. In part, our past (both good and bad) makes us who we are today. While we are all influenced by our past, we do not have to let our past dictate the present or the future. Think of it like this – your car’s rearview mirror shows you where you just came from, what is behind you, but if you only look in the rearview mirror, and fail to look out the windshield to see where you are going, well, the results, disastrous.

When we put our trust in Jesus and follow him, no pain is too great nor no hole too deep to climb out of. When we wait upon the Lord, he hears our sincere cries. David wrote this in Psalm 40:1-2 – I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.

The apostle Paul knew he could not dwell upon his past sins and failures. He writes this, found in Philippians 3:12-14 – Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Paul was not saying that he obliterates any memory of his past. But rather, he consciously refuses to let it absorb his attention and impede his progress. We too, no matter how cluttered our past is with pain and junk, can “forget what is behind and strain toward what is ahead.”

So, don’t wish for do-overs. Instead, accept the past as the past. And look for ways to leverage your past for a better tomorrow; keep your eyes looking out the windshield. Don’t keep looking in the rearview mirror.

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Do you ever feel trapped with no place to turn? After graduation from college, my wife, then my girlfriend, was hired as the director of a drop-in center for kids. One of her duties was organizing and taking the kids on field trips. Her predecessor had previously scheduled a caving expedition for that summer. Despite my wife’s trepidation for being in confined spaces, she kept the activity on that summer’s calendar. I too am not fond of small spaces, but when you are in love, you agree to do just about anything. So, I volunteered to be her co-pilot for this particular activity. At least it wasn’t walking barefoot across hot coals. In retrospect, that might have been a better option.

Entering the cave on our hands and knees was not too difficult and the light on our helmets illuminated the dark damp tube through which we crawled. Once inside the cave, we assumed we would come upon a chamber that would allow us to stand up and turn around, but no, not in this cave. So, in order to get back out, we had to crawl backwards. It sure seemed much longer and much narrower than on the journey in. My heart was racing and I just hoped we would get out before the search party came looking for us. After what seemed like hours, we finally got back the cave’s entrance. Daylight has never looked so good! The kids seemed to really enjoy the experience, but for us, not so much.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you felt you were trapped and there was no escape route? Imagine that you and some friends decide to spend a Saturday exploring those same caves. Since you are an experienced spelunker you want to be well prepared, so before entering the cave you put on all your personal protective gear, put fresh batteries in your flashlights and obtain the most current cave survey map to guide you through the tunnels and passages. After several hours in the caves, you are ready to head back to daylight, only to find that you have somehow lost the map. On top of that, the batteries in your flashlights have run out, so it is extremely dark in that cave. In that moment, fear sets in and you feel trapped inside the cave with no way out. Sometimes in life we have that same fear or panic when we feel threatened or something does not go as planned and we find ourselves feeling scared and trapped.

The Bible tells us that God is always faithful, ready to throw a lifeline to those who are in danger. In Psalm 18 King David so beautifully describes how God rescued him from the hand of his enemies. The psalm starts off in the first three verses with praise to God for who He is. The next two verses go on to tell of the extreme danger David faced, and by the language he used, it sounds real and imminent. Maybe you face a real threat today and these words speak of your fear – “The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me” (vv. 4-5).

Verse 6 tells us that David cried out for help and that God heard his cry – “In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.”

In verses 7-15 we read that God came to David’s rescue. And in verses 16-19 we read these wonderful words – “He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes who were too strong for me. They confronted me in my day of disaster, but the LORD was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.”

The rest of this psalm narrates the grounds for God’s help (vv. 20-29), continues with a recounting of God’s rescue (vv. 30-45), and finishes up with a doxology in verses 46-50. With a few minor variations in wording and phrasing, this rescue narrative is also found in 2 Samuel 22.

So, when you find yourself deep inside a dark and wet cave with no place to turn, call out to God, reach for his lifeline, and trust that He is capable of bringing you into a spacious place.

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