Thought for the Day - Monday 20 July

Thought for the Day – Monday 20^th July

‘Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones. But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.” Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.’(Isaiah 49: 13-16a)

They say elephants never forget – well I wonder if that is really true – I think even elephants as mammals like us must forget some things sometimes.

However, when it comes to God I need no convincing that he ever forgets – he certainly never forgets us - just as we humans sometimes write things on our hands with a pen to remember them, we are assured that God has our names written on the palm of his hand and so he can never forget us! However, while we can always wash away those pen marks of remembrance God tells us here he has inscribed our names on the palm of his hands so being etched into the palm they cannot be removed and therefore he can never forget us!

I know sometimes as we read our Bibles, particularly in the Psalms, we read of people who feel utterly abandoned by God and we see them crying out in anguish to him, yet inevitably they all come to the realisation that God has been there all along and has never really left their side and this realisation generally leads to their spontaneous praise and thanksgiving to God.

When it comes to us, sometimes it is our own sense of guilt that makes us feel like God doesn’t care or has forgotten us and abandoned us – usually though that sense of guilt has arisen because we are the ones who are doing the forgetting - we have forgotten God not the other way around.

I suppose we see that sometimes with valued friends, if we forget them then they might decide to abandon us – but with God that never happens.

You see, no matter how often we fail him, frustrate him, deny him or forget him; no matter how estranged we may feel from him or undeserving we may consider ourselves to be of his love and grace WE ARE ALWAYS IN HIS THOUGHTS. His love is always reaching out to us to bless us and his hand ever-stretched to lead us through life.

So, even though there may be times when we forget him he will never forget us and that knowledge is worthy of our praise and thanksgiving too!

Prayer

Loving God,

In reality we are still people walking in the darkness, we can be fearful, full of anxiety, stressed by life, dismayed by what we see around us, carry thoughts of abandonment. So we pray for the light of your presence; we pray for the light of your wondrous grace; we pray for your gift of newness that can override our weariness; we pray that we may see and know and hear and trust you in our life. May we never forget that our names are inscribed on your palm and so no matter what we face in life you are constantly with us guiding and leading us into your light. Lord, with praise and thanksgiving we offer these prayers. Amen.