Divine Providence in the Smallest Things a Basis for Joy and Hope

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered!" - Matthew 10:29-30

C. H. Spurgeon said, "It is most important for us to learn that the smallest trifles are as much arranged by the God of Providence, as the most startling events. He who counts the stars has also numbered the hairs of our heads. Our lives and deaths are predestined, but so, also, are our sitting down and our rising up!"

How right Spurgeon is and how much we must see God's gracious, loving, intimate and sovereign control and involvement in every atom of the universe and every atom of our lives and existence. Notice what Jesus does not say: "The very hairs of your head are all COUNTED." He says they are numbered--numbered just like the stars individually by name; every hair on our head is numbered; for some of us, we have lost some numbers over the years, but the hairs we still have are intimately known and kept by He who calls every star by name.

I am glad today that absolutely nothing--nothing can happen to the Christian without the Father's immediate control and presence. Jesus is arguing from the lesser to the greater. If sparrows are completely under the intimate eye and always in the presence of the living God, then how much more the lives of His beloved children, right down to the smallest issues like the very hairs of our head; and if our hairs, how much more all the greater realities of life--what comes our way, what providences happen to us, our needs being met, whatever sicknesses or trials that come--we have a Keeper whose love and watching eye is ever on us; it is even more than that--we have His presence with and in us, never to be separated or disconnected from His perfect loving care and ruling in all things.

Spurgeon again-- "His divine providence in our lives and death, but also, our sitting down and our rising up."

Divine Providence makes my heart glad and rejoice with confidence and hope, not in myself, but in Him alone.

- Mack Tomlinson