Alignment

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?
Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care."

(The Greek literal translation is "apart from your Father.")

~Matthew 10:29

Skeptics often ask, "considering the unimaginable scale of the universe

(the universe is about 46 billion light years across and a single light year refers to a humanly inconceivable span of distance,)

and considering the immensity of Time
 
(the universe has been around for about 12 billion years and it is thought that there will still be some stars around in trillions of years barring the unforeseen,) 

why would God give one whit about what human beings do, or about human behavior? Doesn't God have other more important things to care about?"

This is actually a really great question.

We should not neglect the questions of skeptics because by unfolding the implications of them we can actually broaden our understanding of God. There are actually a number of enlightening ways we can unpack this question, more than I have time for, so I will try to stick to my point.

Human beings are indeed tiny and insignificant creatures, and there may be other worlds whose "sparrows" God is involved in just as much as the sparrows of Earth. There may be intelligent beings on other worlds that God is involved in just as much as he is with humans. Or there may not be such things, but in any case we feeble humans are surrounded by an immensity of space and an immensity of time, and we are brief candles that flicker and are gone so quickly that their existence at all might seem illusory. It is in realizing this reality that nihilism may set in, the idea that nothing really matters. This idea states that since we are tiny and meaningless in ourselves, that what we do and what we do to each other is unimportant.

Actually, the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, purportedly written by Solomon, contains an extremely emphatic expression of this idea of mortal insignificance:

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
    says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
    Everything is meaningless.”
What do people gain from all their labors
    at which they toil under the sun?
Generations come and generations go,
    but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets,
    and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
    and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
    ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea,
    yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
    there they return again.
All things are wearisome,
    more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
    nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again,
    what has been done will be done again;
    there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say,
    “Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
    it was here before our time.
No one remembers the former generations,
    and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
    by those who follow them.

~Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

How then can I say that God does care and is involved in our lives, and cares what we do? That he even cares about the animals and plants that we Humans slaughter and uproot at our pleasure?

The first thing that must be understood is that God wishes that everything come into alignment with his loving will. Great and small, all of existence. Earthworms and humans and sparrows. The second thing that must be understood is that our world is not in alignment with God's loving will - far from it. In fact Jesus said in the book of John that the "prince of this world" is Satan. Satan, who is the archetype, architect and origin of all this non-alignment.*

What does the Bible say about the purpose of human beings? In Genesis 2:15, it says:

"The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden
to work it and take care of it."

You don't necessarily have to believe in a literal Adam and Eve or a literal Garden to understand what is meant here. Man was meant to care for the Earth or rather, to be the expression and implementation of God's care for the Earth. How far we have gone from that purpose! And yet, the way for Man to come into alignment with God's will is to be what he meant for us to be: instruments of this care.

The only possible meaning of human life is in its alignment with God's intent, and in our understanding of God and his intent as best we are able. Of course we of ourselves are meaningless and insignificant!! Of course, life lived by our own designs rather than God's is meaningless and insignificant! How could it be otherwise? And though we persist in not fulfilling our purpose, God does not abandon us to our well-deserved demise but continues to reach to us and ask us to come back to alignment with him. God cares about Man's behavior and actions because God is not willing that any single thing in the universe should abandon its purpose and its connection to him through that purpose. Every single atom of every single galaxy is suffused with the concern of God that this atom return to union with his will. Every random stone is known to God. The microscopic critters crawling in your eyelashes right now are known to God. Man may have been given a special purpose, but he is no more special than anything else. All things which return to God are redeemed, and all things that lie outside of God's will are not redeemed but remain in darkness.

So yes, God does care what humans do. He cares what rabbits do too, though they have less influence over their own behavior than humans. Most importantly for our purposes, he wills that we return to alignment with his will and that we do what he meant for us to be doing: know God better so that we can implement his care on Earth better. Know God to serve God as caretakers and caregivers. The skeptics are quite right in this: life lived for ourselves is of no great significance, and a Mankind that lives for itself is of no great significance. A tiny brief blot of dust. Our only possible significance comes with alignment with God's will.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love."

~John 15:5-10

*[those who don't think there is any such thing as Satan are mistaken, but it is also true that Satan's nature and motives are poorly understood. I don't know exactly what Satan is, only THAT he is, and I am pretty uninterested in getting to know him much better. Suffice to say that since this non-alignment by definition could not arise from God's will {God would not will the negation of his own will,} it must have arisen from the will of a created being.]