What does God really care about?

I love little stories, like we talked about yesterday. The pink Toms, the cleats, the little things that God does to show us His tender care. But one of the things I’ve struggled with is the natural conclusion we sometimes come to. I know I’ve said it, perhaps you have to.

“God even cares about [insert whatever thing that He provided]!”

For example, let’s say your daughter needs a prom dress. You pray about it, which is awesome, and you go shopping and you find the perfect dress, on sale, and you go home remarking, “Wow! God is amazing — He even cares about prom dresses!” Ok, that’s cool. Or, I’ll be really honest and embarrass myself because that’s usually what I do best in this space: I remember when we were building our “dream” home and I was so excited about the colors and woodwork and all the details, and something happened that basically made the builder give us $10,000 worth of rockwork on the front of the house for free. I don’t know if I said it or not, but I might have said,

“Wow! God even cares about the rockwork on my house!”

My dad always prays before he buys a new car. That’s cool. Does God care about new cars?

Hmmm…. Does He?

Yes and no.

One of the reasons I really battled two years ago when we decided to sell our house was that there were so many “God stories” that had accompanied it. I mean, He gave us free rockwork, right? Obviously He wanted us in that house so how on earth could He then want us to give it all away?  (I’m smiling.)

And then, as I wrestled in prayer, He impressed so gently on my heart:

Providing you a house was simply loving you in a language you could understand best at the time. 

I don’t really care about the house …

I care about you.

Does that make sense?

The truth is, I don’t really care about Dora shoes. I don’t really care about shoes that light up. In fact, I think they are sort of obnoxious-looking and probably not my first choice.

But I knew my daughter would be delirious with joy. I knew she would look up at me when I gave her with the sparkly shoes and I would show her how they light up and she would beam and hold them to her chest and she would say, “Mommy thank you so much for getting me Dora shoes!! I love you!”

And that’s exactly what she did.

Do I care about Dora shoes? Not really.

I care about her.

God is so gracious that sometimes He even provides things that are probably a little excessive. I did not need rockwork on my house. In fact now I feel sick to my stomach over how much money we spent on that house. BUT. God used it to show me His love during a time I needed it, and then He drew me even further into His love by letting me give it away.

Was it because He no longer cared about my house?

No.

Because all along the only thing He really cared about was my heart.

That’s what God cares about.

{Oh I pray you know His crazy love for you today!! Bask in it, receive it, enjoy it! Bless you, friends. Thanks for reading.}