Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Matthew 10:30-31

How much information is contained in a single strand of your hair?   More than you think.

Neo-natal doctors say that hair begins to develop about three months after conception, and by the time you are born, it tells a great deal about how your mother treated you. After birth, a single strand of hair is something like a filing cabinet of information which tells about what you ate, your nutrition, how you took care of your body, and what kind of a life you have lived.

Chemists say a single strand of hair can be read just like the rings of a tree. The evidence contained in a strand of hair won’t wash out, and if you dye your hair or even go bald you can’t escape the record. It’s there as long as a single strand of your hair is available.

Think about this. The English poet John Keats has been dead for 166 years. Analyzing a lock of his hair, scientists have concluded that he took large doses of morphine because he had terminal tuberculosis. Wow!

Hair analysis gives conclusive proof of drug abuse and can now be used to see what kind of a life a person has lived. And how is all of this possible? Every strand of hair is fed by a supply of blood which carries a pipeline of information and stores it in the follicles of your hair. What an amazing fact!

When Jesus sent the twelve on their first missionary excursion, He told them they were not to fear those who could kill the body, but rather to fear Him who could cast both body and soul into hell. He then told them why. “Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Therefore do not fear; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

None of the prophets before Jesus had been so bold as to single out one of the smallest particles of the human body, a single hair, to argue that God notices and is concerned about the smallest details of life.

But what is far more important is the truth of what Jesus was stressing ‑‑ God takes note of even the slightest event in your life. Do you believe that?

Perhaps you are like the young woman who wrote and poured out her heart. Her letter deeply touched my heart. “I am 33 years of age,” she wrote, “and struggle with wondering if God will meet all my unmet emotional needs.” She continued, “I have felt lately a keen sense of loneliness despite the fact that I have friends [with whom] I can share deep personal concerns. I have been angry with God because I have wanted Him to take away those lonely feelings and the despair of always trying to fill my life up with activities and people to keep occupied.” She described her life as a bottomless pit which never seems to get filled.

How do we bridge the chasm of loneliness and frustration which separates our barren lives from the promise of God’s care and concern? The span which unites us is faith, the confident assurance that the promises of God’s word are true. It becomes a foot bridge which spans the waters of a raging river of life. How wonderful to know that our Father takes note, yes, when something as small as a hair of our head is displaced. Faith is the confident assurance that God menas what He said and that He loves and cares for me as His child. As I combed my thinning thatch this morning, I chuckled, “God has had much to observe lately.” It’s a great guideline for living.

Resource reading: Matthew 5.