journey onWord with us

Traveling down a highway last Friday, I had a cell-phone conversation with my daughter that, shall I say, wasn’t fair to her. She is a good forgiver so my follow-up call and apology were accepted. Upon returning to my office, I had an issue to handle and started a phone call with attitude. The call ended fine, but I was convinced that my responses needed to be more in line with what I believe. Maybe you can relate! Since last Friday, I have attended two funerals and witnessed real pain, not just the petty irritations of a grumpy old man. As God views our irritations and our real pain, what is His perspective?

David, in one of his psalms gives us a clear understanding of God’s knowledge concerning our pain, our grumpiness, our thoughts….our everything!

Psalm 139:1-6 (MSG)
God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand. I’m an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking. You know when I leave and when I get back; I’m never out of your sight. You know everything I am going to say before I start the first sentence. I look behind me and you’re there, then up ahead and you’re there, too—your reassuring presence, coming and going.  This is too much, too wonderful—I can’t take it all in!

Can you accept the fact that He knows what you are thinking before you think it, and He knows what you are going to say before you say it? Without a doubt, God is all-knowing and omnipresent. Our struggle is that we give assent to these great truths, yet often live on a path parallel to them. If the Creator of the universe, who gave His Son for our salvation already knows everything, doesn’t it make sense that we would want to continually intersect our lives with His design?

It is easy to agree with that rhetorical sentence. But when we struggle with thoughts, attacks by Satan, real pain and various other stresses, we often take a turn from, or stop short of, God’s plan. Quickly, we can find ourselves speaking with harshness, thinking negative angry thoughts, asking why and simply running our lives on a parallel or diverging track from His purpose.  But He knows everything!

My Father knows before I go grumpy, and when you or I have deep hurts. He knows our thoughts, and what we are going to say even before we speak it. And in spite of how we drift, and often blow it, He cares (beyond our comprehension), He understands (even when we don’t understand ourselves), and He is willing (with His gentle hand of grace) to meet us at our point of need. No matter what is happening in your life right now, give it all to the Father. He already knows!