The “Happy Birthday” parade on Facebook has to be one of the best redeeming aspects of the social media giant. Yet recently, on my birthday, Facebook forgot. I don’t mean the tech-platform behemoth itself, but the reminder Facebook is supposed to send people seemed not to happen.
So there I sat, partway through the day with nary a “Happy Birthday” text or Facebook message. Fortunately, my wonderful wife and kids, as well as my parents and family, remembered and celebrated in grand fashion. Then later in that day, a co-worker remembered and sent a text.
Then I went from bust to boom, as my wife posted a nice message on Facebook, and a chorus of “Happy Birthday” began, for which I am grateful. (For the record, I myself am terrible at remembering people’s birthdays and pausing to send them well wishes. Perhaps even today, there’s someone I forgot, so here I’ll say “Happy birthday!”)
During those brief moments, in which I thought my close friends and Facebook friends seemed to have forgotten my birthday, I was reminded that God never forgets. He sees us.
Consider these words from Psalm 139:
1O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Our Heavenly Father knows and sees each one of us—on our birthdays and every day. And as the Ultimate gift, He offers us not only birth, but re-birth in His Son (John 3:16). While Facebook messages and birthday parties are great, the greatest gift of all is Jesus!
