My cat Gizmo was deathly ill one summer, so he hid inside the ginormous juniper bush we had in our backyard. He nearly died of dehydration because I couldn’t find him for a couple of days. When I was finally able to coax him out and get water down his throat with a dropper, he got well.
In Psalm 139, and in Hebrews 3 and 4, a comparison is made between how well God knows our ways (infinitely and perfectly) and how well we know His (maybe not so much).
David lists this eloquent description of all the stuff God knows about us, like when we sit down, when we get up, what we think, where we go, what we are going to say before we say it, and so on. In the middle of this he says:
“You are acquainted with all my ways.”
You are known thoroughly and completely by God. He knows you so well He can predict your next move and even your next thought. He made you. You were not hidden from Him in the womb, and there is nowhere in the universe that you can hide from Him now.
Not only that, the writer of Hebrews says “And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” (Heb.4:13) This comes right after the part about God’s word laying us open like a surgeon’s scalpel, exposing every “doubt or defense,” as the Message Bible puts it.
Nowhere to hide. No way to conceal anything.
That seems pretty threatening when we run from God out of distrust, fear, or guilt. When we are reconciled again to our loving Father, it is actually a great comfort.
God is not about harming His children, any more than I wanted to harm Gizmo. He is about healing us, growing us up, and transforming us into the image of His Son. As His child, you have nothing to fear from His full knowledge about you.
How have you been hiding in the juniper bush lately?
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