His name was Dave…

When I remember him, I see a tall, skinny, older man wearing glasses with thick lenses…

lenses that almost qualified for that cliché “coke bottle” description.

On this day long ago, he stood smoking outside the door to the office where we both worked…

He held a short stub of a cigarette tightly between his lips, with a long ash dangling toward the ground.

As I got to the door, I stopped to talk…

God didn’t come up in many conversations in that office…

Conversations usually focused on the lousy boss, the lousy job and how fast we could get out of there…

Little did I know this conversation would change my view of God forever…

Dave was older than most of us and liked to portray himself as the office philosopher…

The conversation began in an ordinary way…complaints and whining from both of us.

Then Dave the philosopher asked a question: “So, what do you want God to do about all your problems?”

“God?” I asked.

“God.” He replied.

Feeling exceptionally wise, I looked into the distance for a moment, pretending to draw wisdom from a source only I could see…

“God”, I replied, “doesn’t deal with small issues. He doesn’t worry about problems like mine.”

“I’m sure you’re right”, said Dave.  “I’m sure God doesn’t worry about anything.”

“But what do you want Him to do about your problems?”

“I told you, God doesn’t deal with small issues.”

I felt virtuous.  I was admitting that I was small and God was big… too big to even notice me…

“You’re saying God’s too busy?”

“I suppose.”

Dave dropped what was left of his cigarette on the sidewalk and crushed it under his shoe.

“Wow!” he said.  “I had no idea your God was that small.”

He turned to leave, then stopped and looked back at me…

“Is He really that little or are you just putting limits on Him?”

Without waiting for an answer, Dave turned back toward the office door and walked away.

I’ve thought of that conversation many times…

For a long time I was sure I had been right…

I was convinced that my opinion was the humble, God honoring opinion.

But over time, the patient, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God of the universe has shown me how He watches over each of us…

“But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.So do not fear…”  Mathew 10:30-31

And offered assurance of His plans for our future…

‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.   Jeremiah 19:11