I am part of something much bigger and much grander than myself. It is when we get our eyes off of these spiritual truths that we can become discouraged and depressed. Satan will try to convince us that we are all alone, that no one knows we even exist, and that no one cares if we live or die. It is during these times especially that we need to keep in mind the heavenly parade. We are marching right now in it. It may not seem that way. But one day we will see just how real this has been. 

Parades have sort of fallen out of favour in recent times in the West. Sure, we still have some more modern and trendy versions such as a homosexual pride parade that some folks will get into. But the older, more traditional parades that celebrated things like our fallen soldiers and historical milestones are less important today it seems.

Memorial Day parades or Fourth of July parades (at least in America) were once largely attended events. We used to love to celebrate and commemorate great events and important achievements. But today patriotism, heroism and related virtues are now on the wane. At best, we are now prone instead to celebrate perversions and debauchery.

Thus June is supposed to be “Pride Month”. Well, I for one will certainly not be celebrating that. As some memes making the rounds have pointed out, the first pride event was when Satan fell from heaven, or when God rained fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. I do not want to be on the wrong side of history here – that is, God’s history.

My thoughts on public processions and celebrations of key events are because of a dream I had last night. If you don’t mind, I can share parts of it here. I was in a large, multi-roomed building, and I saw a lengthy group of people parading through the hallways and rooms. Soon it was outside, and I had joined in with it. It seemed to have been a group of believers, perhaps celebrating something like Easter.

Upon awakening it occurred to me that there has always been one long parade of God’s people. It was there in Old Testament times. And certainly since Christ came we have had a continuous, non-stop parade of Christians throughout human history.

There has never been a time in the past 2000 years when the light of Christ and those bearing witness to him have been fully extinguished. There have always been God’s people celebrating the great things of God. And just as I joined in with this already-in-progress march in my dream, so too, all of God’s people are part of this ongoing event.

And since I am now reading again in the book of Job, I am reminded that he too was a part of this massive parade. He too had a role to play in all this. He may not have seen the bigger picture, but he was one of the millions of participants, bearing witness to God and his Kingdom.

One of course thinks here of Hebrews 11. We call this the ‘Hall of Faith’. It speaks of so many great heroes of faith who have gone before, people such as Noah or Abraham or Moses or Gideon or David. Even the pagan prostitute Rahab who protected some Israelites is included in this list of great men and women of God.

Indeed, in the genealogy of Jesus mentioned in Matthew 1 we find three foreign women included: Tamar, Rahab and Ruth. And my point is, if there is a heavenly list of all God’s people throughout the ages, my name will be included there – as well yours, if you have let Christ give you newness of life and forgiveness of sins. So many people…

In fact, before I fell asleep last night and had my dream, I was thinking of ALL the people who have ever lived on earth. Right now there are 8 billion on this planet. How many more were around over the centuries? What I found to be so amazing is that if God knows everything about me, if he knows me by name, if he is intimately aware of my every thought and action, this is true of every other person who has ever lived.

That alone should do our heads in. What an amazing God we have who knows in exhaustive detail everything there is to be known about every single human being ever born. Yet he treats each one of us as if we were the only person on earth. He is able to give us individually his complete and undivided attention. And he does that with everyone!

So if you are thinking that no one knows about you or cares about you, well, there is at least one person who does: God. And if you are one of those people who feels alone, unloved, unwanted and unknown, be aware that there are so many others as well who might feel this way.

As mentioned, I am back in the book of Job, and early on it really struck me to read what he said soon after God allowed him to be afflicted so very greatly. Consider just a few passages:

“Why did I not die at birth,
come out from the womb and expire?” (3:11)

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