In daily life, whether or not you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you face conditions that include toil, sickness, loneliness, sorrow, and loss. Sometimes you encounter tasks that threaten to sap your energy and time, and have no confidence to do them well. You may be going through illness or have hidden fears. It seems that no one in this world can fully empathize with the sufferings that you have to endure each day.

At times you may feel an unspeakable sense of loneliness and abandonment that empties you. It is as if God were far away and deaf to your cries for help and relief. But it is precisely in such moments that you must remind yourself that you are special in God's eyes. You are the very apple of His eye!

The apple of God's eye—how marvelous a thought! The apple of your eye is so delicate a part of your body that it is literally untouchable. Your eyelid instantaneously shuts itself tightly if any foreign body comes near. We instinctively raise our hands to ward off anything that approaches our eyes. That is exactly how precious we are to the Lord. Whoever attempts to touch us attempts to touch the apple of God's eye. God would never allow it.

We who belong to God are not like those without Him. Once, we were far off, "without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" (Eph 2:12). But now we have been found by God, as in the days of old when He searched out and made Israel His very own. "He found [Israel] in a desert land, and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness. He encircled him, He instructed him. He kept him as the apple of His eye" (Deut 32:10).

As God's people, we are the apple of His eye. God knows every trial that we encounter, and all will be well, for He is in control. He will guide and protect us according to His will, which surpasses common human understanding.

Whenever we feel small or down and out, we should think of how precious we are in God's sight. When we suffer, God actually suffers just as much, if not more, than we do, because "in all [our] affliction, He [is] afflicted" (Isa 63:9). Let us therefore with faith cry out to Him, "Keep me as the apple of Your eye" (Ps 17:8)!