Matins Devotion: May 19, 2025

Luke 12:1-12

When I was growing up, I often heard Christians quote this verse about God knowing the number hairs on your head in a sort of sweet, sentimental way. “Isn’t it great that God knows you so well? Isn’t it wonderful that the Creator of the heavens and the earth loves you so much that He knows the number of hairs on your head.”

Now that is great and wonderful. But what Jesus is saying here is even greater than this, because when Jesus tells us that His Father knows the number of hairs on your head, He tells us this in the context of describing the persecution that His disciples will face. Those who have authority over them, the Jewish leadership, the Romans, will use threats of death to get them to deny the truth. Those who drag them before the synagogues and rulers and authorities will attempt to use their power to end their lives.

But the disciples will have no reason to fear because they belong to a God who will never abandon them. The God who knows the number of hairs on their heads is more powerful than those who don’t, which means that those who would take their lives can only succeed in delivering them into the arms of the Father who cherishes them, the One whose love is infinitely greater than the hatred of this world.

So it’s not just neat and wonderful and sweet that God knows the hairs on your head. It’s a treasure of unfathomable worth. The God who knit together every atom of your flesh will never abandon you, never forsake you even if the world devours you. If those who have a touch of power in this life use it to put you in the grave, you will close your eyes for a moment. And then you will open them to see the face of the God who forgave you but never forgot you, the God who knows you who are down to the marrow in your bones and the depths of your soul, the God who will lift you up from the grave with the perfect number of hairs atop your glorified head on the last day.