Devotion - April 23

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;
your walls are continually before me.
—Isaiah 49:14-16

Anna, (my goddaughter), was 4, maybe 5 but I’m pretty sure 4, and we were having a sleepover. I lived on the ground floor of a duplex in Ballard. Friends Tricia and Dwight were my upstairs neighbors. My bedroom at the back of the apartment was tiny – just large enough for a twin bed pushed flush to the wall on one side and leaving about a yard on the other to climb in and out. Anna’s sleeping bag for the night was on the floor next to the bed.

We were getting tucked in for the night, saying prayers, making sure the water bottle was in reach and the nightlight was illuminated. Just before turning off the light, Anna looks at me, her brown eyes curious and intent. “You know kids,” she says, with a touch of wonder in her little voice, “How do you know kids?”

I didn’t have children of my own – I think she was trying to work out how I knew all this bedtime stuff with so little daily practice. But I loved her earnest inflection in those words – “You know kids”. It wasn’t, “You know how to put a kid to bed”, or “You know just what to do.” It was “You know kids.”

I think about that all the time in my own relationship with God.

God knows kids – and we are his children. It isn’t just that God knows how to run the world, or what his children need to be settled and sleep in peace. God knows kids. We hear it in the prophets, in verses like Isaiah 49:14-16. We’re told it by Jesus as he describes God that Father – who knows what his children need before they ask (Matthew 6:8).

Remember today: the Lord has not forgotten or forsaken his children. God knows kids. We can entrust ourselves to his good care.