HAVE YOU CONSIDERED ME?
“This conversation is going in a direction that doesn’t feel good to me.” I stood up from the couch.
A weighty breath slipped from Credo’s lip before pausing his game.
“Look, I heard what you said, this isn’t me trying to be difficult or hardheaded.” I explained. “I’m gonna pray about what you said.”
He looked at me for a moment before turning back to his game. I couldn’t quite place his expression—curiosity mixed with frustration and sadness. Or maybe it was just irritation. It felt like he didn’t understand me, or maybe he couldn’t.
The pregnancy then, and the complications now, were revealing me to him in a different light. One day I was stubborn, the next fearful, the following doubtful, and most recently, brittle and coarse—unable to hear anything without crumbling, easily pushed from faith to fear. I was drowning in it, grasping for something steady, while he stood on the shore, watching.
I’m sure it was exhausting for him—frustrating even—as we both came to terms with the fact that he couldn’t fix it for me. There was no arrangement of his words, no outpouring of his love or wisdom, that could pull me from this place.
Still, I wanted him to.
I treated him as if he held the answer somewhere in his pocket as if my tears and confusion might somehow prompt him to give it to me. His words to me lost their softness, sometimes they were stale, other times rough, most times just revealing his exhaustion.
“You’re like the person that looks at themselves in the mirror and then forgets what they look like.”
“If everybody is saying the same thing to you maybe you’re the one that has it wrong.”
“Look, talk to somebody else about it.”
I didn’t believe he was committed to misunderstanding me—I was simply realizing that he had his limits. As much as he loves me and as deeply as he knows me, he’s just a man. Just another one of God’s children, with boundaries and capacities that aren’t wide enough to hold the most exhaustive parts of me. And maybe they never will be.
In all my frustration towards Credo for not saying the perfect thing or comforting me exactly the way I needed, a gentle and familiar voice would echo somewhere in me, asking, Have you considered Me?
“You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.” psalms 139:2 [NIV]
A few days passed before Credo and I landed in the same place again. After calling me prideful, stubborn, and faithless, I found myself in a familiar position: misunderstood, annoyed, alone, and frustrated.
When I came to God this time, I didn’t come for answers—I just wanted to vent. Maybe blow off a little steam.
He doesn’t know how to talk to me, I said. He’s insensitive. He just doesn’t get it.
Complaint after complaint. Fault after fault.
God let me wear myself out before gently asking me a question of His own:
Why do you go to him first?
He’s right there, I answered aloud. If I cry, he’s there to see it. If I’m upset, he’s there to ask me about it.
Am I not?
Have you considered Me?
Can I be the first place you go?
It felt like an obvious answer—an easy solution. Go to God first. Duh, right?
At first, I felt relieved, like finding my wallet after searching for it for hours. But once that relief faded, a new question surfaced: Why didn’t it occur to me to go to God first in the first place?
And really—how does someone become the first place you go?
I guess the question was rhetorical because God didn’t answer. But in His silence, I realized something I didn’t want to admit: He just isn’t first on my list.
I don’t go to Him first because He isn’t first. Sometimes Credo is.
Sometimes my parents.
Sometimes friends and family.
If I’m being honest, God has often been somewhere in the middle—or even at the end.
“Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things; by Your will they exist and were created.” Revelation 4:11 [NIV]
I can’t speak for you, but for me—God is easiest to ignore because I can’t see Him.
When something happens—whether excellent or horrific—there’s often no pause between the event and my instinct to either comfort or celebrate myself. It's almost automatic. When safety is threatened, I scramble to re-establish it. When joy shows up, I want to share it immediately with my best friend.
But who orchestrated that joy? Who allowed me and my best friend to meet? Who intentionally selected the parents and siblings that now comfort me? Who empowers them to do so?
We may not get on our knees and worship created things, but we often erect them in our lives and hearts as our gods.
Colossians 1:16 tells us:
“For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:”
What does this mean?
We credit people for being kind, merciful, supportive, and loving—as if they made themselves that way. They are bearing the image of God, but they are not God.
The people we elevate above God, the things we cling to for comfort, and the places we turn to for peace were all created by God and for God.
The beauty we admire in others, the fruit we taste from their gardens, the awe we feel in response to their gifts—it was never meant to end with them.
It’s not about worshiping them. It’s about worshiping the One who made them.
It’s an invitation to wonder:
Who is responsible for the goodness in this person?
Genesis 1:26 reminds us:
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’”
What does this mean?
Sin doesn’t change the image and likeness we were created in. It also doesn’t change who created us.
His image and likeness are reflected in us and the people around us. So, instead of the beauty of God in others leading us to jealousy or idol worship, I pray it pushes us to curiosity and wonder about God as our creator.
Creativity is from God. Kindness is from God. Love is God. Musicality is from God. Talent is from God. Beauty is from God. Your favorite artist, creative, person etc. did not magically appear.
And in James 1:17, we’re told:
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”
What does this mean?
The good and perfect gifts we receive from God reveal a part of His heart and character to us.
The gifts are FROM Him, but they cannot REPLACE Him.
God’s gifts to us are specific and meaningful. Let’s take a moment to repent for the gifts we have made our god and put God back in His rightful place.
“Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.” 1 john 3:1 [BSB]
We pause, we marvel, and we run to people and things that reflect God’s image and glory to us.
Credo was created by God—and in some ways, he reveals pieces of Him to me. But he isn’t God.
My mom, full of wisdom and strength, has often been a beacon of God’s voice in my life. But she isn’t God.
My father, perhaps the clearest picture I’ve known of fatherly love, was given to me as a gift. But even he isn’t God.
These people—these reflections—were never meant to replace the source. They point me to Him. They affirm what I’ve learned about Him. But they can’t hold the weight of being Him.
So yes, Credo sees my tears—but God has counted and collected every single one.
Yes, my mom can offer advice based on what she thinks I need—but God already knows what I need before I even ask.
And yes, my father will always be my knight in shining armor—but God?
God has overcome the world, for me. What a God and what a love He has for you and me.
People, creation, and the beauty woven into our lives offer us snapshots—brief, breathtaking glimpses—of the overwhelming and incomprehensible love God has for us.
But they are not the real thing. They point us to Him, but they are not Him.
I pray that as we continue to journey through our lives, we do so with renewed curiosity and wonder—asking not just what is good, but who is behind it.
