By Dennis Pollock
want to talk with you in this little devotional about tattoos. You may be thinking that I will be taking up the subject of whether Christians should get tattoos, but that is not what I am talking about. I want to answer the question: “Does God Himself have a tattoo?” and I would venture that most of you have never even thought about this or heard a sermon preached about it. But I want to demonstrate to you today that unquestionably God has inscriptions on His mighty hands, and this is very good news for all of us.
I won’t keep you in suspense. Let’s look at the passage that proves this point. In Isaiah, we read this: But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, And my Lord has forgotten me.” (Isaiah 49:14)
As the children of God and followers of Jesus Christ, we know, theologically, that the Lord does not forsake His children and He certainly is incapable of forgetting us. But in an experiential sense, many of us, perhaps most of us, have had times where it feels like this. It feels like God has indeed forgotten us. We have prayed and prayed for days and months, and nothing is happening, nothing is changing, and it just feels like God doesn’t even notice our desperate prayers and needs and desires. We would never say that the Lord has forsaken us, but it kind of feels that way.
The Devil’s Lies
And when we are feeling this way, the devil will jump into that situation and whisper in our ears: “Yep, that’s right. God doesn’t pay any attention to you. You’re too small, too insignificant, and you’re certainly not holy enough for God to ever answer your prayers.” And it is a very precarious position for us when we start to doubt God’s love for us, and even His awareness of us. Like the Israelites of old, we feel, although we probably will not say it, “The Lord has forsaken and forgotten me.”
When Christians struggle with serious problems, we face issues that secular folks never worry about. When unbelievers face major issues, they don’t blame God or wonder why God has allowed this to come into their lives. They don’t believe there is a God who controls all things. They just see their problems as bad luck, or maybe they feel they need to try harder to fix their problems. Nor do they blame the devil. In their minds, life is random, and they just happened to draw the short straw.
But Christians don’t see things this way. We believe there is an Almighty, all-knowing God in Heaven who controls even the smallest events in our world and in our lives. He knows every hair on our head, and He knows precisely and exactly what we are currently going through. And we also know that God could change things immediately if He wanted to. A simple word from Him would turn our situation around, and this, of course, is why we pray. A leper came to Jesus and said, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” (Matthew 8:2). He knew that Jesus could heal him, but he wasn’t sure that He wanted to. Jesus’ ability was never in doubt; He had healed far too many hundreds and thousands of people to question His ability. But did he want to heal him? Sometimes we feel this way. Lord, you could…but do you want to? And we wonder, as Israel wondered: “Have you forgotten me?”
Mommas & Babies
In the Isaiah passage, God responds this way: Can a woman forget her nursing child, And not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, Yet I will not forget you.
God settles the matter once and for all, using the most powerful bond in human existence: the bond between a mother and her nursing child. As unlikely as it is for a nursing mother to forget her baby, His love is infinitely greater. God is saying that the idea of Him forsaking and forgetting His people is an impossibility – it will never happen; indeed, it cannot happen. And then He uses the idea of a tattoo, at least that is what we might call it today. He announces: See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands… (Isaiah 49:15-16)
God has “inscribed” us on the palm of His mighty hands. My name, Dennis Pollock, is there on God’s hands, and so is yours, if you have become a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ. God can’t forget you or forsake you. All He must do is look down at his hands, and there you are! When the devil whispers to you, trying to make you believe that God does not notice you, or has no idea of what you are going through, it is a boldfaced lie. Every hair of your head is numbered, and likewise, every challenge or sorrow or tragedy you experience is intimately known by your compassionate Father in Heaven.
God Sees, He Knows, He Loves
God wants us to know that HE IS AWARE! And He is not unconcerned about your struggles. When you have prayed for months and seen little evidence that God has heard your prayers, do not give up! Just because God does not answer our prayers immediately or within a few days of when we first start praying does not mean that God has not noticed us or is unconcerned with our suffering. Requiring a period to pass before answering our prayers is God’s normal way of doing things; you might say it is His modus operandi.
When I found myself single as a middle-aged man, I knew that I did not want to spend the rest of my days in that state. I did what I always did when I experienced a great need or desire. I started praying. I claimed Scriptural promises, and I put up relevant Biblical verses on cards on my computer desk. Months went by, and then a year. There was no sign of God’s answer to my fervent prayers. And then, while doing meetings in Nigeria in November 2007, a beautiful young lady came up to my car and asked if she could interview me about the meetings. We got to know each other and exchanged contact information. Within six months, I was married to this lovely lady. God did not answer my prayers for a wife immediately; it took around two years, but Benedicta was worth waiting for. And God’s answers to our prayers are often like that. God may not act as soon as we call on Him, but in His own time, He will come, and we will discover that we have not been forgotten after all. Because of Jesus, we were inscribed on the palms of His hands all along.
