journey onWord with us

When you were young, did you ever make a mistake and try to hide it from your parents? Wasn’t it uncanny how they would always seem to know what you had done? It was like they were all-knowing. Even as adults, we have all been guilty of spilling coffee, breaking a glass or losing something valuable and trying to hide the mistake. Just a few months ago, I was reading one day and dropped a full cup of coffee right beside my favorite chair. Rather than tell my wife, I did my best carpet cleaning routine and was no worse for it. A little over a week ago, my wife Genel asked me, “did you spill something on the carpet?” She wasn’t mad when I confessed, but I had worked hard to cover my transgression. All of us try to keep some things just to ourselves. But in truth, nothing is hidden from our all-knowing God.

My reading over the last few days took me to a convicting, but comforting passage of Scripture. Psalm 139 shows us the greatness of God, and that He is all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful and all-holy. Without a doubt, none of us can comprehend with much depth the greatness of these attributes. Yet an infinite God has chosen to love us intimately. Wow! In his book on Psalms, Steven Lawson has given an example of how our infinite God has chosen to be intimate with us.

Yet this infinite God is intimately aware of every individual on the planet. In the midst of over six billion persons on earth, God knows each and every one perfectly. The very hairs of their heads are numbered. He knows what each person will say before he says it. He is present everywhere, personally involved at even the most minute level. Having created every life, God presides over every aspect of each of these lives. Every thought, attitude, word and deed is an open book before him. How can a God so immense be so immanent? Such is the mind-boggling yet soul–comforting reality about our infinite yet intimate God.

In the first six verses of Psalms 139, David makes the all-knowing attribute of God very clear from a personal perspective. He starts with O Lord, you have searched me and known me. God knew David (and us) completely and thoroughly. There was nothing hidden. These verses detail God’s intimate knowledge of our attitudes and activities. He knows what we are thinking and what is on our tongue. Those selfish, sometimes mean-spirited thoughts that we would never breathe out loud are not hidden from Him. He knows what we are going to say (good and bad) before it rolls off our tongue.

It is hard to comprehend the level of love and knowledge the Father has for us. To even think that our infinite God cares for us so intimately is mind-boggling, and at the same time comforting. David said in verse six; Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is high; I cannot attain it. To be known so completely, and still loved unconditionally should cause all of us to respond with lives fully devoted to God.

Nothing that you or I will think or say this week will be out of His view. He will know when we work and when we rest. All of the secrets that we keep hidden from others will be on full display before the Father. And even though His knowledge is beyond our comprehension, it should cause all of us to be open and honest daily with Him about our lives. We can feel free to share all of our mistakes, all of our struggles and even our failures. He already knows, and still loves us unconditionally. Wow!