Are You a Discounted Deal of the Day?

The old hymn, “His Eye is on the Sparrow” has been an earworm for me this week. Are you familiar with it? The lyrics of the second verse run:

               “Let not your heart be troubled,” His tender word I hear,
               And resting on His goodness, I lose my doubts and fears;
               Though by the path He leadeth, but one step I may see,
               His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I’ve been pondering about the little sparrow that He’s watching. It’s easy to absorb the direct words of comfort found in this verse. The call to rest on the goodness of His character is clear. But what does the comparison of that sparrow have to do with me?

Since childhood, I’ve heard this hymn and just accepted the comparison; the sparrow is tiny, and in the grand scheme of the world, I’m tiny, too, but God even sees the tiny stuff. But it is deeper than that. In two of the Scriptures that mention sparrows and compare them to the Father’s care for us, the monetary value of the bird is mentioned. In Matthew 10:29, two sparrows are sold for a penny. In Luke 12:6, five are sold for two pennies. I suppose Luke found some kind of a “buy two sparrows, get a half of one free” deal, but either way, sparrows were extremely inexpensive. Neither verse mentions purchasing just one; to get anything worth anything, you had to have at least two.

Have you ever felt that way? That your worth was in your comparative value as assessed by others, and that it didn’t add up to much? We equate our earning potential with how valuable we are. We take stock of our material gains and decide that those holdings somehow translate to an expression of our personal significance. So many of us look around the marketplace and figure that we deserve to be in the bargain bin.

That’s not at all how God sees us. That comparison to sparrows that we find in Scripture is to point out that, from His point of view, NONE of His creation is in the half-off sale. It’s not that God sees “even the small stuff;” it’s that to Him we ARE NOT small stuff! That kind of devaluation and underestimation comes from ourselves or the world around us, but NEVER from the One who knit us together with great care. Those itty-bitty sparrows that we require two of to be worth our time and effort? They are important enough to draw His gaze to the extent that He notices any time that any single one of them falls from the sky.

The scripture is telling us that our scales are wrong! The measures we are using to determine our value and worth need to be calibrated by His truth. God pays attention to that tiny bird because He formed every detail of it. He taught it to sing. He designed its wings to perfection. He selected the color palate of its feathers. He had purpose for its life when He decided to add it to His creative vision. He cares. How much more does He care for us? The ones He calls His children. The ones He sent His own son to redeem. The ones whose hair count is known to Him because, again, He desires to know every detail about us. The ones who bear His own image in their faces.
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Don’t let your heart be worried and restless. Rest in His goodness. Let Him have your doubts and fears. Even if you only see one step of the way forward, remember: He has placed immense value on the sparrow and watches over it carefully. He has placed eternal value in you. He sees you. He knows you. He has called you worth His attention and care. I’d accept the valuation of the expert.