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Transcript

Always On His Mind · Wilder Whispers Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hey friend, welcome to Wilder Whispers, a space where we slow down and listen for God's voice in the ordinary moments of life.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Shay Wooden, and I'm so glad you're here.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: We often expect God to speak through big moments, a sermon, a breakthrough, a perfectly quiet prayer time, and he does.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: But so often, he chooses quieter ways, in the middle of everyday life, in the unnoticed moments, in gentle whispers that invite us closer.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Each episode, I'll share one simple story and the quiet truth God revealed through it.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Not because it was extraordinary, but because he was present.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So wherever you are right now, take a breath, let's slow down, and listen together.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever wondered if anyone is really thinking about you?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not just remembering your name, but carrying you in their thoughts.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: There are people we admire who will never know we exist, people whose attention we hope to capture, people whose approval we quietly long for.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yet even the deepest human relationships have limits.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: We forget birthdays, we lose touch with friends, we become distracted, our thoughts drift from one responsibility to the next.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Even those who love us most can't keep us continually on their minds.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: But what if there is one whose thoughts towards you have never ceased?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: What if before you woke up this morning, you were already on his heart?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: One ordinary afternoon, while standing in a crowd on a downtown Chicago sidewalk, the Holy Spirit reminded me of a truth I've never forgotten.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Years ago, I was working in downtown Chicago when I heard that Mel Gibson was filming conspiracy theory just a few blocks away.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you know me, you'll know Bel Gibson has always been one of my favorite actors.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: So when it was time for lunch, I walked over to the set.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Barricades lined the street and crowds of people stood behind them watching the filming.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: For most of the time, nothing exciting happened.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: He only filmed one scene while I was there.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: The rest of the time, he simply sat in his chair between takes while cameras were repositioned, lights were adjusted, and the crew prepared for the next shot.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we stood there.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: We watched, we waited.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I kept hoping there might be a chance to meet him before I had to head back to work.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: But my lunch break eventually came to an end, and I walked back to the office with several pictures, but no autograph and no chance to actually meet him.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: To Mel Gibson, I was simply one more person standing behind the barricades.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't know my name, he didn't know my story.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: But years later, as I thought back to that ordinary lunch break, the Holy Spirit quietly whispered something that completely changed the way I remembered that day.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: You've always been on my mind.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: As those words echoed in my heart, my thoughts immediately went to Psalm 8.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: David writes, When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit him?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm 8, 3 and 4.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: I love that David begins by looking up.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't start by looking at himself, he starts by looking at God.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: He considers the heavens, the moon, the stars, the vastness of creation.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Every star placed exactly where God intended it, every galaxy held together by his power, every planet moving in perfect order because the creator ordained it to be so.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: The more David considers the greatness of God, the smaller he feels.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what makes his next question so remarkable.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: What is man that you are mindful of him?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Notice what David doesn't ask.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't ask God, are you powerful?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Creation has already answered that.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't ask God, do you exist?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: The heavens have already declared his glory.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, David asks something much more personal.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Why would someone this great care about someone like me?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Why would the God who hung the stars give his attention to people made from the dust of the earth?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: That little word mindful is the key to the whole passage.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: It means more than simply being aware of someone.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: God isn't absentmindedly remembering us the way we suddenly remember an item we forgot at the grocery store.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: He isn't casually aware that humanity exists somewhere on a tiny planet in a vast universe.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: To be mindful is to hold someone in loving attention, to keep them before your heart, to care for them with intentional concern.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: David is overwhelmed by the thought that the infinite creator is not distant or detached.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: He is mindful of us.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps that's the question you've wrestled with too.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Why would God think about me?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Out of all the people who have ever lived, why would he care about my life, my struggles, my joys, my future?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: David asks the question in Psalm 8, but he doesn't answer it there.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: The answer unfolds in another Psalm, a psalm that pulls back the curtain and shows us what God's mindfulness actually looks like.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's where Psalm 139 takes us.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: If Psalm 8 asks the question, Psalm 139 gives us the answer.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean that God is mindful of us?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: David begins with these words.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: I love that he doesn't say, You have observed me, or you have collected information about me.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: He says you have searched me and known me.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is the language of relationship.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's deeply personal.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: David begins to describe just how completely God knows him.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know my sitting down and my rising up.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, you know the ordinary moments of my life, the moments no one else notices.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: You understand my thought afar off.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Before I can even untangle my own thoughts, you already understand them.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: There is not one word in my tongue, but behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Before the words ever leave my mouth, you already know them completely.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Then David says something even more astonishing.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: God knew every one of his days before one of them ever came to be.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Before your first breath, God knew you.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Before your first step, God knew where your path would lead.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Before you spoke your first word, he already knew every conversation you would ever have.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: God's knowledge isn't reactive.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: He never learns something new about us or discovers something he didn't already know.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: He has always known.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Before our words, before our days, before our birth, he knew us completely.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what I don't want us to miss.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm 139 doesn't present God's omniscience as an abstract doctrine.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: It reveals God's heart.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't cold omniscience, this is covenant intimacy.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: God doesn't know us because he's conducting surveillance.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: He knows us because we belong to him.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: As I studied this Psalm, one observation especially stood out to me.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: David isn't intimidated by being known this completely.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's comforted by it.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to what he says in verse five.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: You have hemmed me in, behind and before, and laid your hand upon me.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: At first, being hemmed in almost sounds restrictive, like being surrounded with no way out.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: But David doesn't describe it as a prison.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: He describes it as protection.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: The hand resting on him isn't the hand of a detective trying to expose him.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't the hand of a judge waiting to condemn him.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's the hand of a loving father.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: The one who searches him also surrounds him.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: The one who knows him also holds him.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: The one who formed him never leaves him.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it means for God to be mindful of us.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: His perfect knowledge has always been joined to his perfect love.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: So Psalm 139 tells us that God knows us completely.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: It tells us about his thoughts toward us.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: David writes, Many, O Lord my God, are your wonderful works which you have done, and your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to you in order.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's Psalm forty five.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that for a moment.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: David doesn't simply say that God has thoughts.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: He said God has thoughts toward us.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: That little word toward changes everything.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: God's thoughts aren't distant observations, they're personal, they're intentional.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: His heart is turned toward his people.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And David says that if we tried to count these thoughts, we couldn't.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're more than can be numbered.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm 139 echoes that same wonder.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God, how vast is the sum of them?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of the sand.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's verses 17 and 18.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine standing on a beach, scooping up a handful of sand and trying to count every grain.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just one handful.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: David says God's thoughts are more numerous than the sand.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: But notice something else.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't just say they are many, he says they're precious.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: So what are the thoughts of God toward us like?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Scripture begins to give us glimpses.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah tells us they flow from an everlasting love.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: But Isaiah gives us one of the most beautiful pictures of that love in all of Scripture.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: God says, see, I have engraved you on the palms of my hand in Isaiah forty nine and sixteen.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Engraved.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Not written where the ink can fade, not penciled in as an afterthought, permanent, intentional.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: You don't engrave something you intend to forget.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: You engrave what you want permanently before you, and that's the picture God gives his people.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: You are before me.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: You are remembered by me.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: You matter to me.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus gives us another glimpse when he tells us that even the hairs on our heads are numbered, his knowledge of us reaches even to the smallest details.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing about your life is insignificant to him.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: When you step back and look at these scriptures together, they become different windows looking into the same room.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that room is the heart of God.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: The God who knows everything about you has set his heart towards you.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly David's question in Psalm eight begins to make sense.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: What is man that you are mindful of him?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: The answer isn't found in our worthiness.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's found in his love.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: As I reflected on all these scriptures, one more verse came to mind.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's only seven words long, but it ties everything together.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: We love because he first loved us.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: John doesn't say we discovered God.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: He says God loved us first.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: The initiative was always his.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Long before we ever turned our hearts toward him, his heart was already turned toward us.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Before we ever prayed, he already knew every word we would speak.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Before we ever searched for him, he had already searched and known us.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Before we ever loved him, he first loved us.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's the story of Scripture from beginning to end.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: God is always the one who makes the first move.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: He came walking through the garden looking for Adam and Eve.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: He called Abraham before Abraham knew where he was going.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: He pursued Israel again and again, even when they wandered.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the Holy Spirit still draws hearts to the Father today.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Everything begins with him.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: His love didn't begin the day we believed.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't begin the day we surrendered.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't begin the day we got our lives together.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: His love came first.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: His thoughts came first.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: His pursuit came first.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Which means our relationship with God has never been about earning his attention.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's always been a response to the attention he has already given us.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: When I think back to that lunch break in downtown Chicago now, I see it differently.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: There I was, standing behind a barricade, hoping for a moment with someone I admired.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And there was nothing wrong with that.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: But that ordinary memory eventually caused me to consider a much bigger question.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Whose attention matters most to me?
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I'm honest, there are times when I can become more aware of who isn't thinking about me than I am of the one who is.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe know what that feels like.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Someone didn't call.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Someone didn't acknowledge what you did.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Someone whose approval mattered to you didn't give it.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Someone you thought would remember, forgot.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And those moments can affect us more deeply than we want to admit.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: But what if we stopped measuring our significance by the attention we receive from people?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: What if the truth we've uncovered in these scriptures become more than something we believe about God and actually change the way we see ourselves?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: David stood beneath the stars and wondered why the creator would be mindful of him.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the response isn't to keep asking why.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's simply to believe that he is.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the question I want to leave with you.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: How would you live differently if you truly believed you've always been on God's mind?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Would you still need everyone to notice?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Would someone else's silence carry the same weight?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Would being overlooked have the same power to define your worth?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you know whose mind you're on, you don't have to spend your life trying to get everyone else's attention.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe today you've realized that you've been asking the wrong question.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you've been wondering, does God really care about me?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Does he know what I'm going through?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Does my life matter to him?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Scripture has already answered those questions.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: The Father who formed you knows you completely.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: His thoughts toward you are more than can be numbered, and his love for you is everlasting.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to convince him to notice you.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to perform well enough to capture his attention.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to wonder if you're important enough to occupy his thoughts.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: You already do.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of striving to be seen, rest in the truth that you are already known.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of trying to earn his affection, receive the love he has already poured out upon you.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Take a few moments this week and sit with Psalm 139.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Don't rush through it.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Read it as a conversation between you and your Heavenly Father.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Allow each verse to remind you that his knowledge of you is never separated from his love for you.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when the voices of this world tell you that you're overlooked, forgotten, or insignificant, come back to David's question in Psalm 8 and remember the answer you've discovered today.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: The God who created the heavens and the earth has always held you in his heart.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for loving us with the love that is beyond our understanding.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: When we look at the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have set in place, we join David in asking, What is man that you are mindful of him?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, you are.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for searching us and knowing us completely.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you that nothing in our lives has ever been hidden from you.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not our joys, our fears, our victories, our failures, or our tears.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you that your knowledge of us is never cold or distant, but always joined with your perfect love.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Father, forgive us for the times we've looked to people to give us what only you can give.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Forgive us for seeking affirmation, approval, or acceptance from the world while forgetting that we have always been fully known and fully loved by you.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Help us to rest in your heart.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: When we feel forgotten, remind us that we have never left your thoughts.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: When we feel insignificant, remind us that we have always mattered to you.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: When we wonder if anyone truly knows us, remind us that before we ever knew you, you already knew us completely.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Teach us to live with the quiet confidence that comes from belonging to you.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: May the truth of your word settle deeply into our hearts so that we no longer strive to earn your attention, but simply rest in the love you have already given us through Christ Jesus.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for thinking toward us with love.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for never forgetting us.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you that your heart has always been toward us.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: In the name of Jesus we pray.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: There is something deeply comforting about knowing you don't have to remind God that you're here.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to compete for his attention.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to wonder whether there's room for you in his thoughts.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: There is.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's what makes David's question so beautiful.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: What is man that you are mindful of in?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: He never stopped being amazed by it.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe we shouldn't either.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: The creator of the universe is mindful of you.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not because you weren't a place in his thoughts, but because that is the heart of your father.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: So carry that wonder with you today.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: When you begin to wonder if you've been forgotten, look up.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Remember the stars.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And today's whisper to carry with you is this the God who created them is mindful of you.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for spending this time with me on Wilder Whispers.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: I hope today's story reminded you that God is closer than we often realize and that he's still speaking, even in the ordinary moments of life.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Whispers are the language of closeness.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: They invite us to lean in.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: As you go about your day, whether you're working, resting, driving, or just trying to catch your breath, stay attentive.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: God is not far away.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: He's not silent.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: He's near.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he's speaking.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep listening.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is Wilder Whispers, and I'm Shayward.