“O Lord, how great are Your works! Your thoughts are very deep.” Psalm 92:5

His Thoughts

Cultivating Awe and Reverence for God, Day 26

Walk his Way revisited —First posted in January, 2017

God seems very busy to me. When I consider all that He is doing at any given moment, it boggles my mind how He keeps up with it all. How does He have time to think about anything? If I have more than one or two things to do at one time, I am overwhelmed, unable to truly focus on even one task. If I can hear the TV, I can’t read. If the car radio is on, I can’t pray. If I am busy with my pity party, I can’t love others.

My favorite thing to do is to sit and think. Many of you would hate my favorite day: going somewhere alone, say, the beach or a mountain meadow or a trickling stream, with just a thermos of coffee, my Bible, and my thoughts. And yes, it’s really true: I love to think about the Lord. Think HARD about Him. Think deep thoughts. Just sit with His Word open before me and meditate on Him and what I know about Him, and all that He has done in the lives of people in the Bible, and in the world today. This is a wonderful way to cultivate awe and reverence for God—to think upon Him.

Today’s Scripture makes me wonder what God Himself thinks about. It is clear from the Word that He has “very deep” thoughts. What is a deep thought for God? “’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isaiah 55:8-9). As always, we see a clear distinction between Him and ourselves. We know that He doesn’t need “quiet time” to think His thoughts. He doesn’t need to “get alone,” for He already sits high above all else. What would God, Who knows everything and doesn’t need to think anything over or make any decisions, Who doesn’t need to ponder life or people or outcomes or consequences—anything at all—think about?

The multitude of His thoughts are about us. “Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works which You have done; and Your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to You in order; if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered” (Psalm 40:5). And we don’t have to have our life “all together” or be super saints for Him to think on us: “But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinks upon me” (Psalm 40:17a).

His thoughts about us are not only numerous and very deep, but they are precious: “How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with You” (Psalm 119:17-18). Just what are these precious thoughts? “’For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,’ says the Lord, ‘thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope’” (Jeremiah 29:11).

He also thinks about His plans and purposes. “The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, ‘Surely, as I have thought, so it shall come to pass, and as I have purposed, so it shall stand’” (Isaiah 14:24).

Of course, in this life we’ll never know the specifics of God’s thoughts. The book of Job ponders God and His ways, and the summary is this: “Can you search out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than heaven—what can you do? Deeper than Sheol—what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea” (Job 11:7-9).

Thanks be to God: He sits enthroned above all, knowing all things, having countless, precious, deep thoughts about us. Because He is unlimited in all His attributes, then we know that His thoughts are more often than we can imagine, more precious than we can hope for, and deeper than anything we can relate to.

Father, we see that Your deepest thoughts are unwavering love. Oh, that we could love You even a fraction of how much You love us. In the beloved Name of Jesus. Amen.