It doesn’t take much to entertain me. Almost nothing, in fact. My stepdad used to tell me that he could make me laugh just by saying, “Pass the mustard.” And of course, because he’d said that, I’d laugh, so he’d say, “See? I told you so!” It used to make me mad, but then I realized that it was probably a good thing, because laughter is good for the soul. So if I laugh easily, then maybe I have a healthy soul. Proverbs says,

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength. ~ Proverbs 17:22, NLT.

The Bible also says that God laughs (for example, Psalm 59:8, where God laughs at His enemies), and if God laughs, then it must be okay for me to do so.

All of that is to say that God cares about the little things in our lives as well as the big and important things, things that don’t make a difference or mean anything to anyone at all. For example, I love numbers, at least partly because God created them. Also, I drive a 2012 Toyota Matrix. As I was driving down the freeway the other day, the odometer turned over so the numbers read, 1 2 3 4 5 6.

Now, I realize that event doesn’t mean anything to anyone, and is of absolutely no importance to anyone, but I had been hoping to notice when the numbers on my odometer read that. It was exciting to me. And if I keep this car long enough so the odometer reads 3 1 4 1 5 9 (the first six numbers of Pi), that will be an exciting event for me as well.

I also love it when palindromes show up on my odometer. A palindrome is a number or word, or even a sentence, that reads the same forwards and backwards. An example of a numeric palindrome would 123321, or 24566542. Radar is an example of a palindromic word, and an example of a palindromic sentence is “Madam, I’m Adam”.

I think palindromes are, dare I say it, beautiful. That might sound kind of silly, but I do, because they’re so wonderfully ordered, and God is a God of order.

The reason I’m writing about this is because, as I said above, God cares about what we care about. As silly as it sounds, I had asked God to let me see it when my odometer turned over to read that number, because it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event, and you have to be in the right place at the right time to catch it. That number, 1 2 3 4 5 6, will only happen once in this car, and it felt like a special thing for me. And God allowed me to see it. I’m very grateful to Him for that. It might not mean anything to anyone else, but it meant a lot to me, at least partly because it was a small indication of just how much He loves me.

1 2 3 4 5 6. How cool is that!! Jesus loves me!!