October 19

Confession: I totally zoned last night. It was a busy day, and I was tired, so I forgot to post. But no fear: I did take a single photo while I was out and about. And here it is:

Yup, that's a bar code. (And yup, now you all know about my weird habit of taking photos of bar codes so I can avoid lugging items to price scanners.) Anyhow, each product in a store has its own unique set of bars and numbers. Some shops carry a lot of products, so it's necessary to develop a system that features lots of these codes. And keeping them organized has to be nothing short of a full-time job for some (un)lucky person.

Now let's look at God for a sec. There are far more humans on the face of the planet than there are items in the store, but God doesn't need bar codes to keep track of where we are or what we're doing. (Or to assess our value, for that matter. Good news in that department: we're all priceless!)

Given that I can hardly keep track of my kids some days, I think it's pretty amazing that God just knows us.

(Quick note: I realize that it may be hard to not think of the atrocity that was the Holocaust when it comes to the notion of numbered, coded human beings. Understand that I'm saying here that God does the opposite: he doesn't need to number us physically because He made us, and knows and cherishes us without weighing us down with digits or special, homogeneous markings.)