Prayer Week 26: Fully Known

Do you hide from God? Is there a part of you or your life that you think He doesn’t know or doesn’t care about? These are common misconceptions for humans in general because God is not physical. It is hard to view Him as being omnipresent when we can’t see Him. Deeper than that is the idea that God couldn’t love us like He does if He fully knew us.

 

Psalm 139:1-6 New American Standard Bible 1995

O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
You understand my thought from afar.
You scrutinize my path and my lying down,
And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
Even before there is a word on my tongue,
Behold, O Lord, You know it all.
You have enclosed me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is too high, I cannot attain to it.

God is everywhere. He knows and sees everything, even our thoughts. This is not an abstract, objective, indifferent kind of knowledge. God intended for knowledge to be intimate and part of relationship. That is why the Old Testament referred to intercourse as “knowing.” Unfortunately, sin ruined that. That is why God didn’t want Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge, it was knowing without relationship, head knowledge that either puffs up or creates distance and even fear. God’s knowledge of mankind didn’t change after the fall, our relationship with and perception of Him is what changed.

 

Sin caused knowledge to be acquainted with fear instead of security. Sadly, now it is “natural” for us to fear being fully known, which is why we hold back even with God, even though being fully known is what our souls crave. We need to fight that fear (for fear is not of God) and work to be open, especially with God, but also with others whom we can trust, like our spouse.

 

God seeks to know us. He searches us because He wants that intimate, relational knowledge of us. He already knows all of our actions, even before they happen. He even knows our every thought. Even the deep recesses of our hearts and minds are not concealed from Him. His knowledge of our actions is not abstract. He studies us to understand our personalities and quirks, not to criticize but to love us. He doesn’t know us to shut us out but to protect us. He is not tyrannical, selfish or malicious like worldly authority figures. He does not want to use us. We were created to have relationship with Him. This knowledge, knowing about His perfect, infinite, complete knowledge of us, is too wonderful to grasp. We cannot fully understand it in our sin stained, finite minds.

 

This week as you pray, focus on these six verses. Slowly read through this passage and think about each phrase. Concentrate on one verse each day and make it a personal prayer. Let God speak to you through it. Repeat it to yourself throughout the day and pray it into every situation.

 Prayer points taken from Praying Through Adversity by Jennifer Kennedy Dean.