It would be a bitter sorrow for the world if God did not care. Into countless homes and hearts it would bring the darkness of despair. The secret of hope in believing souls everywhere, is that God does care. This is one of the great truths God has been teaching through all the generations. The Bible presents it on every page.
But does God really care? Does He care for us as individuals? Does He give personal thought to any of us — to you, to me — according to our condition? Does pain or trouble in us cause pity in His heart? Does God see the individual in the crowd? When you are passing through some great trouble, enduring pain or adversity — does God know it, and does He care?
We know how it is with our human friends. Love is individual. Its interest in us varies with our condition and our need. When we are happy and well, our friends love us and feel no anxiety concerning us. But let sickness come, or pain, or bitter disappointment — and their hearts are torn with sympathy. That is what it means to care. Is God less compassionate than men are?
A daughter had a bitter sorrow, a sore disappointment. The mother knew just what her daughter was passing through. Her love for her child entered into and shared all the child’s experience. The mother cared. Is there ever anything like this in the heart of God — as He looks upon His children and knows that they are suffering?
The Psalmist said, “I am poor and needy — yet the Lord thinks upon me!” There was wonderful comfort in that assurance. For one man, poor and needy, surrounded by dangers and with no human helper near, to be able to say, “Yet the Lord thinks upon me!” was to find marvelous strength. Did God really care for him? And does God care for us, and think upon us, when we are poor and needy?
When we turn to the Bible, we find on every page the revelation that God does care. The Old Testament is full of illustrations of this truth. Hagar was cast out into the wilderness, and God cared. “The Lord has heard your affliction,” was the message sent to comfort her. The Psalms likewise are filled with assurances of God’s personal interest in His people.
Christ teaches the same truth. He assured His disciples that amid all the vast concerns of the universe, not even a sparrow falls to the ground apart from the Father, and that “the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” God personally cares for the minutest affairs of our lives. His love is not merely a vague kindness toward the human race as a whole. It is personal and individual, as the love of a mother for each one of her children.
The Shepherd calls His sheep by name. Paul took the love of Christ to himself as if he were the only one Christ loved: “He loved me — and gave Himself for me!” God’s love is personal. He cares for us — for me! He enters into all our individual experiences.
In a remarkable Old Testament passage, speaking of God’s love for His people, the prophet says: “In all their affliction He was afflicted.” Isaiah 63:9. How could the care of God for His children be expressed more plainly? In their sufferings, He was not indifferent. Their sorrows were not unnoticed. When they suffered, He was near in mercy and love.
Whatever your need, your trial, your perplexity, your struggle may be — you may be sure that God knows and cares, and that when you come to Him with it, He will take time amid all His infinite affairs, to help you — as if He had nothing else in all the world to do.
God cares. His love for each one of His children is so deep, so personal, so tender — that He has compassion on our every pain, every distress, every struggle. “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.” Psalm 103:13. God is our Father, and His care is gentler than a human father’s, as His love exceeds human love.
Much human care has no power to help. But when God cares — He helps omnipotently. When human friendship can give no relief, God will come. When no one in all the world cares, God cares. We may bring every burden to Him, for the apostle gives us this gracious word: “Cast all your cares upon Him, because He cares about you!” 1 Peter 5:7.
J. R. Miller was a pastor and former editorial superintendent of the Presbyterian Board of Publication from 1880 to 1911. His works are now in the public domain. This is an edited version of his original essay.
