Word for Wednesday... Solitary Witness
What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.
Matthew 10:29-31, NLT
Early one morning several months ago I was the solitary witness to a rarely witnessed event. I was running on Woodland heading toward downtown Burlington, rounding the curve just before it terminates at Tarleton, when I saw it; a severely deflated mylar balloon making contact with the asphalt after what was presumably a days—if not weeks—long journey from an unknown point of origin. I imagined that several people witnessed its departure. The words “Happy Birthday” printed upon it indicated it was probably tied to a mailbox identifying where a celebration was taking place, or attached to a gift delivered to a friend at school, and somehow it got loose, slowly ascending high into the sky until it was finally lost from view. But as the old saying goes, “what goes up must come down,” which it did, and I was there at just the right time to see it.
But I wasn’t the only one. God saw it. God sees everything. This is the message Jesus was attempting to convey to the crowds that followed him in the passage quoted above. To make his point he referred to sparrows, an extremely common and apparently worthless bird, mostly due to their size. They are really hard to make a meal out of! And yet God takes notice of the passing of each and every one of them. So it stands to reason that if God is this observant when it comes to sparrows, surely he notices what’s going on in the lives of his children, who are far more valuable to him than they are, and he does! He sees everything you are going through. He is aware of each and every hurt you are experiencing, the burdens that you are carrying, and the struggles that you are enduring. You may sometimes feel like you are the solitary witness to your suffering, but God sees it, he suffers alongside you, and he will see you through it.
