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The God Who Knows Me
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The God Who Knows Me A friend emailed me this week and told me about a conversation her daughter had with her young son. Megan, the boy’s mother, was addressing some mail and decided to find out how much her young son understood. She asked her son, “Where do you live?” “At my new house,” he replied. She agreed that he was correct, and asked if he knew on what street he lived. “Palmer,” he said with a look of satisfaction. “Right!” his mom enthusiastically responded. Can you say, “1314 Palmer”? Then his mom asked, “What is your last name?” There was a pause, and then he blurted out, “Douglas! Brent Douglas!” “Well,” she said, “that is your first and middle name, but what is your LAST name?” There was another long pause. Finally he said, “Come Here! Brent Douglas Come Here!” Well. . . if he didn’t exactly know who he was, at least he knew where he should be. “Who am I?” “What am I doing here?” “What should I be doing in life?” These are the questions that we should be taking seriously because God wants us to know the answer. They are important. These are the questions the Psalmist was asking. They have to do with our personal identity — and our eternal destiny. How we answer those questions determines how we will live and order our lives. Let’s look at this psalm, and the three major observations the psalmist makes about God. God Know Us Intimately The first is: God knows us intimately. David wrote, “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.” God is not impersonal to David. He is very personal — too personal, perhaps. He searches him and knows him perfectly. There is nothing hidden from the knowledge of God, so that there can be no excuses, justifications or fabrications. This is an important truth to understand. There are those, I suppose, who think that because they have hidden something from others, they have hidden it from God. Nothing could be further from the truth. David went on to say, “You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.” He knew that his every thought, as well as his every action, was known by God. David warned his son Solomon, as he was about to be anointed king of Israel, “And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts.” Everything David could think of was known by God. He said, “You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.” God has perfect knowledge and he is everywhere at once. We often think of the vast expanse of the cosmos. We are told that there are one billion stars in one galaxy, and one billion galaxies in the universe. That God is not only aware of every star and planet, but is the Power which keeps each one operating is beyond our ability to understand. He knows each star by name. But what about the inner cosmos? Is not God also aware of every orbiting particle in every atom in each of our bodies? Is his mind not greater and his knowledge of us deeper than we can ever understand? Dr. John Medina, genetic engineer, of the University of Washington helps us to understand a bit of the intricacies of the human body. He said, “The average human heart pumps over 1,000 gallons a day, over 55 million gallons in a lifetime. This is enough to fill 13 super tankers. It never sleeps, beating 2.5 billion times in a lifetime. The lungs contain 1,000 miles of capillaries. The process of exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide is so complicated, that it is more difficult to exchange 02 for C02 than for a man shot out of a cannon to carve the Lord’s Prayer on the head of a pin as he passes by. DNA contains about 2,000 genes per chromosome — 1.8 meters [nearly 6 feet] of DNA are folded into each cell nucleus. A nucleus is 6 microns [one millionth of a meter] long. This is like putting 30 miles of fishing line into a cherry pit. And it isn’t simply stuffed in. It is folded in. If folded one way, the cell becomes a skin cell. If another way, a liver cell, and so forth. To write out the information in one cell would take 300 volumes, each volume 500 pages thick. The human body contains enough DNA that if it were stretched out, it would circle the sun 260 times. The body uses energy efficiently. If an average adult rides a bike for 1 hour at 10 mph, it uses the amount of energy contained in 3 ounces of carbohydrate. If a car were this efficient with gasoline, it would get 900 miles to the gallon.” We have a great Creator who has intricately made us and knows every part of us. But he not only knows our bodies, he knows the secret place of our minds. It is an awesome thought to realize that nothing I do or think is hidden from God. When I do the right thing, but do it from the wrong motive, he is aware of that. And I must give an account of my attitudes, my actions and reactions to him on the final day. We Can Not Get Away From God The second thing that David realizes is: There is no way we can get away from God. Sometimes the thought of God’s knowledge of every hidden thing I do or think is a bit overwhelming. I would like to get away from him and his all-seeing eye. I want my privacy. I want to shut the door a lock him out at times. But just when I think I am running away from him, I find myself running into him. At the time this psalm was written, it was commonly assumed that there were many gods, and each one was confined to a particular locality. There were the gods of the hills and the gods of the plains. The God of Israel could not possibly exist in other countries — or so it was commonly thought. But David knew that even if he went to the farthest ends of the earth, he could not get away from God. He said, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” One man told of when he was a young boy, and his family decided to move. The night before they left, he went into his room and knelt down by the bed and said, “Good-bye God. We’re going to Montana.” He was sure that he was moving away from God, but when he arrived he found that God was there as well. Sometimes when God gets too close you find yourself wanting to run away. This is what happened to the prophet Jonah. God had gotten too close for comfort, as far as Jonah was concerned, so he thought he would go on the run. God told him to go to Assyria, Israel’s enemy, and preach to them so they could be saved from his judgment. But Jonah wanted them dead, so he took off and boarded a ship to parts unknown. He knew that God was in Israel, but he did not think God lived in countries far from Israel. After all, they did not know him there and he was not worshiped there. He was the God of the Hebrews, but not the God of other nations. But God surprised him, and met him on the far side of the sea. Then he sent him even farther away to preach peace with God to a people that Jonah felt were beyond God’s grace and care. But God was not limited to Israel, or even planet earth. I can still remember the first Russian cosmonaut going into space and coming back with the message that they had looked all through space and did not find God anywhere. By way of contrast, one young airman of the Royal Canadian air Force, who was killed at age 19, wrote this poem about his early flying experience:
You have to be looking before you find something. Only those who ask are answered. Only those who seek will find. And only those who knock find the door opened to them. God is everywhere, but you have to be looking for him to find him. We Can Not Hide From God The third observation David makes is: There is no way we can hide from God. Well, if I can’t go far enough to get away from God, perhaps I can at least hide from him where I am. David wanted to hide from God, for he said: “If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” The darkness can’t hide me from God. I wasn’t even hidden from him when I was hidden in my mother’s womb. Even when my body as yet had no form, God saw me. He knows the beginning of my life and the ending. There are no secrets which are hidden from him. It began to dawn on David that God’s knowledge of him was a good thing, not a bad thing. It was to his benefit that God was paying such special attention to him. He said, “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.” In the end, David invites God to know him even better, for he said, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” It finally dawned on him that God’s interest in him was not in order to find fault with him, but because of a heart that was full of perfect love for him. Jesus said, “And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid” (Matthew 10:30-31). God is always watching you, because he is crazy about you. He can’t keep his eyes off of you. Margaret Wise Brown wrote a children’s book The Runaway Bunny. “Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away. So he said to his mother, ‘I am running away.’ ‘If you run away,’ said his mother, ‘I will run after you. For you are my little bunny.’ ‘If you run after me,’ said the little bunny, ‘I will become a fish in a trout stream and I will swim away from you.’ ‘If you become a fish in a trout stream,’ said his mother, ‘I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.’” A little allegory of the soul don’t you think. No matter how far we run. No matter where we hide God will find us. The message in the story of the runaway Bunny and the heart of the Bible are the same: “You just can’t get away from God.” If you run from him, he runs after you. If you run to him, he embraces you. But wherever you are, and wherever you go, his eyes of love will follow you. |
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