“O LORD, you have searched me and known me. . . You understand my thoughts afar off. . . Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24).
Dear Praying Friends:
In his books and in his “Being Known” podcast, Christian psychiatrist Curt Thompson states that our greatest need is to know and be known by people who accept us. Paul says that the Galatian Christians had not only come to know God, but were “known by God” (Galatians 4:9).
In the Bible, to “know” someone often means not only to “know about,” but to know intimately. “Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore” a son to him (Genesis 4:9).
Now David asserts that God has known him and has not rejected him. That’s the wonder of it all. As Shane and Shane’s song on Psalm 139 says, “You see me through and through and call me loved. What a wonderful grace!” (Watch and listen here).
God’s loving knowledge of us was also the central lesson of the novel Byzantium, which I had Sarah read when she was being homeschooled. After my brother Peter died, she dashed off a little painting to remind me of this most consoling truth.
We can find special comfort in the fact that God knows our anxieties and even our “wicked” ways, and still loves us. Whatever we have done, whatever we are going through, our Lord knows us and loves us as no one else can.
“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it” (Psalm 139:6).
Yours in the love of the one who knows and loves us through and through,
Wright