How well does God know you?

In Psalm 139:1-6, David says God has "searched" and "known" him completely. In this study on God's attributes, Dr. Toby Holt explores the omniscience, or all-knowing, of God.

God knows our sitting down and rising up, our thoughts, even our words before we speak them. His knowledge is not gained over time the way we get to know a friend — He knows all things instantly and perfectly, and is never surprised. The comfort: the God who knows us fully, sin and all, loves us still.

Questions this study answers:

1. How does God's omniscience bring both conviction and comfort? It convicts us, because He sees everything; it comforts us, because He knows us fully and loves us anyway.

2. Is God ever surprised or learning? No. God knows all things at once and perfectly. He never grows in knowledge or discovers anything new.

3. How should God's all-knowing reshape how we live? It moves us to honesty before Him and trust in Him. The God who knows everything also knows what is best.

"Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it." — Psalm 139:6 (NKJV)

Dr. Toby Holt is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio. Find more verse-by-verse Bible teaching at newgeneva.org; support this ministry at newgeneva.org/give.

This morning, in my hand here, I have a coin.

2

What kind of coin do you think I have?

3

What do you know about me that suggests what kind of coin I might have?

4

Well, those who know what kind of coin I have know that I probably asked my wife for whatever coin she had to use as a prop this morning, and she handed me a quarter.

5

Now let me ask you a follow-up question.

6

Now you know what coin I have.

7

What year was this minted?

8

I mean, it's right in front of you.

9

What year was this coin minted?

10

Now, we're reduced again to guesswork.

11

We're reduced to trying to guess, to perceive what this might be based on the thinnest of details.

12

We can squint, we can guess, and we might guess correctly.

13

However, the odds of guessing not only what denomination of coin I held,

14

but also the year in which it was minted, the odds of doing both simultaneously are astronomical.

15

Now, what's the point here?

16

Well, the point is that this quarter, it represents just a single object in this room.

17

A single object that really only has two variables.

18

what denomination it is, and what year it was minted.

19

And this coin, it exists in the same room as you do.

20

In fact, it's less than 100 feet away from most of you.

21

And yet, until a minute ago, you didn't even know this coin existed.

22

Until a minute ago, you didn't know it existed, and you still don't know any details about it.

23

Now, the point is this.

24

That which we know is just a fraction of that which can be known.

25

Think about this room.

26

Here we are. We're all gathered in this room.

27

Someone tell me, how many people are here?

28

Anyone know? Probably not.

29

Look at the light bulbs above us.

30

What's the wattage of any one of these bulbs?

31

What's the wattage combined? Do we know that? No.

32

Some of you have been here for years.

33

How many hymnals do we have in the pews before you?

34

How many hairs are on your own head?

35

If you start to look at how many things can be known

36

and can be counted and can be ascertained

37

even in your own immediate environment

38

and ask yourself, how much of it do I actually know?

39

you'd recognize that our knowledge is a fraction of the available data,

40

and that's just in this room.

41

That's nothing to say about the world around us or in the greater cosmos.

42

The amount of which you know about the created realm

43

is the smallest fraction of a fraction of that which knowledge exists.

44

Now, by contrast, by contrast, God knows it all.

45

As Scripture says, God knows when the sparrow hits the ground.

46

God knows how many hairs are on your head.

47

God knows the denomination of every coin.

48

God knows everything.

49

That's what omniscience is.

50

It's the knowledge of everything.

51

Not just some things, not just a little more than you and I,

52

not just a little more than all the people cumulatively,

53

but the knowledge of everything that is and everything that could be.

54

You see?

55

Psalm 147, a different psalm, eight chapters later,

56

says that God's knowledge, it's comprehensive.

57

Comprehensive.

58

It says, great is our Lord, abundant in power.

59

His understanding is beyond measure, cannot be calibrated.

60

Romans 11 describes God's knowledge in just infinite terms.

61

It says, oh, the depth of the riches of both the wisdom and knowledge of God.

62

How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out.

63

Finally, Isaiah 55, which we read earlier, it's the icing on the cake.

64

It says, in God's words, it says, my thoughts, they're not your thoughts.

65

My ways are not your ways.

66

God says, as far as the heavens are above the earth,

67

which is a sign of infinence,

68

as far as the heavens are above the earth,

69

so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts.

70

See, these verses and countless others,

71

they portray God's wisdom and knowledge as something infinite,

72

as something boundless, something that could not be measured.

73

So when we say this morning, as we start this sermon,

74

when we say God's omniscient, we're saying that he knows everything. He knows every event, every

75

fact, every detail, every circumstance, every outcome. Now let me add something else. God not

76

only knows every fact, every circumstance, every event, every outcome, he not only has a full map,

77

a blueprint of reality, but he also has a full map and blueprint of possibility. Do you understand

78

the distinction? Yesterday you got up at a certain time. Do you remember what down to the minute what

79

it was? Probably not, but God knows. God knows what time you got out of bed yesterday, but here's

80

the thing. He also knows how your day would have panned out if you had gotten up an hour earlier

81

or an hour later. God knows how your day would have panned out if you turned left instead of

82

right on any number of choices in your walk yesterday. He not only knows reality as it is,

83

he knows reality as it could be. He knows all the possibilities. He knows every rabbit trail

84

of every possible decision or hypothetical that you could ever have taken upon yourself or chosen.

85

He knows all the alternate endings.

86

With that said, if he knows all the alternate endings, I want you to be comforted by this.

87

God knows all the alternate endings to all the choices you could ever have made,

88

and yet this, this reality is the one that he's determined.

89

You and I, sometimes we second-guess ourselves and we go back and we look at all the decisions of our life

90

and we wonder how we got right here.

91

Sometimes we're encouraged by that, sometimes we're conflicted by that.

92

Whatever the case is, God knows all the possibilities that exist for all decisions you've ever made,

93

and he has lined everything up so you will be right here right now.

94

Be comforted by what he's doing in your life that stems from his knowledge.

95

All right, let's go back to today's text as we usually do and look at verses 1 through 3,

96

and we'll work our way through the balance of this short passage.

97

Okay, verse 1.

98

O Lord, Lord, you have searched me, you have known me.

99

You know my sitting down, you know my rising up.

100

you understand my thoughts are far off you comprehend my path and my lying down you're

101

acquainted with all of my ways you know there is an old greek story you know one of the myths that

102

you might read in high school of the greek gods lowercase g well one of the greek gods was a bit

103

of a prankster his name was prometheus and he determined to trick zeus to trick zeus now i'm

104

not going to go into all the details because honestly they're sort of crass but with that

105

said, it was not unusual for one god in Greek mythology to attempt to deceive or work around

106

or scheme or plot against the other gods. Now, here's the takeaway. In Greek mythology, no one

107

god was omniscient. In fact, if you look at the gods of Egypt or the Canaanites or the Philistines

108

or what have you, what you'll realize is this. They had a lot of gods, and no one of these gods

109

is omnipotent or all-knowing. They could be deceived. They had limited jurisdictions. You

110

could travel outside of the range of their authority and their knowledge the greek gods

111

canaanite gods philistine gods egyptian gods gods of even the eastern cultures in our present day

112

these gods they're powerful theoretically they have different abilities but almost to a fault

113

none of them are described as being omniscient study pagan deities and you realize this that

114

the people whittled and fashioned these things out of wood and bamboo and rock and marble,

115

when they assigned these deities qualities, they didn't assign the quality of omniscience.

116

I think there's probably some reasons for that. One is because fallen sinful man really doesn't

117

want an omniscient God, because an omniscient God is one who knows everything you're doing,

118

and it's hard to flee or run or hide anything from him. So interestingly, when people made pagan gods,

119

they never ascribed that attribute to them

120

because it made it harder to avoid that God or hide from that God.

121

With that said, verses 1 through 3, they describe a God who's entirely different.

122

They describe a God who knows you intimately, whether you like that or not.

123

Verses 1 through 3 describe a God who is intimately familiar with your ways,

124

with your ways, your actions, your thoughts.

125

Verses 1 through 3 describe a God who knows everything there is to know about you

126

And here's something that's encouraging.

127

He knows everything that there is to know about you, and yet he still loves you.

128

There are people in your life, in your job, in your employment, maybe in your own family,

129

if they knew everything about you, they would have trouble loving you.

130

God knows everything, and yet he loves you still.

131

Now, Psalm 139, let's go back for a moment.

132

Who wrote Psalm 139?

133

What's a safe choice?

134

David, you're right, that's a safe choice.

135

And it's also the right choice.

136

King David wrote Psalm 139.

137

Now, I don't know, King David, did he ever do anything wrong or embarrassing?

138

Yes, I'm hearing affirmations.

139

Did he ever do anything wrong?

140

Yes.

141

Ask Uriah the Hittite.

142

Say, Uriah, tell me, did King David ever, I don't know, do anything wrong?

143

Uriah would say, yes, absolutely.

144

David did things wrong.

145

His sins are on display in Scripture, some of them terrible.

146

With that said, God not only knew David's deeds,

147

but he knew something that we don't know.

148

He knew every one of David's thoughts,

149

and some of David's thoughts were bad, salacious, terrible.

150

And yet, despite all that God knew about David,

151

and despite things David had done

152

that you would think might have made him almost unlovable,

153

David was still loved.

154

God loved him still.

155

God loved David in spite of knowing his deepest, darkest secrets.

156

And again, that's different from the way we love one another.

157

It's different than the way we love one another.

158

If the deepest, darkest secrets of everyone in this room was laid bare this moment,

159

there's not enough doors in this room to hold the exodus that might happen

160

if everyone knew everything about one another around us.

161

Well, God knows all of that, and yet he loves us still.

162

Let's see how the psalmist builds on this as we look at verse 4.

163

Verse 4.

164

For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

165

Let me ask you, has anyone been married more than 50 years in the room here?

166

I see a few hands, all right.

167

Well, I'm not quite there.

168

My aunt and I aren't quite there.

169

But I've learned something in a shorter amount of time.

170

I've learned this.

171

When you've been married for a while,

172

sometimes your spouse understands what you're thinking

173

just by looking at your face.

174

Sometimes you don't even have to say anything

175

and your spouse understands completely

176

the words that are about to be formed on your tongue.

177

In my own case, I guess the mix of my very expressive face

178

and my very intelligent wife

179

means that she knows a lot of times just what I'm thinking just by looking at me. Well, in a limited

180

sense, very limited sense, that's what verse 4 is saying. God knows. God knows. God knows what we're

181

thinking, the words that are about to form on our mouth before they're even given breath. But here's

182

the distinction. That knowledge, the knowledge God has, doesn't come through observation. See, if your

183

wife understands you or your husband understands you, it's largely because of experiences and

184

observation. Your spouse has studied you. Your spouse knows your habits, knows your ways, knows

185

the way you talk, the way you interact, and the like. So your spouse understands you based on

186

observations. That's not the basis of which God understands you. See, God's knowledge is not what

187

you call successive. Your knowledge is. You have grown in your knowledge. You've gone from one

188

point, to another point, to another point, successively. God understands everything

189

simultaneously, and that is a significant difference. Our knowledge is acquired, sometimes

190

the hard way. I'll give you a personal example. Some of you know that when we first moved to

191

Mississippi several years ago at this point, I came in and I shared with the church, and I shared

192

with the commission, the session that interviewed me, I shared that one of the things I enjoyed

193

about the South was I appreciated the humidity. So I said, I appreciate the humidity. Of course,

194

they just about laughed me out of the room when I said that. Well, here's the thing.

195

Since I first said those words, I've now lived here. Since I now said those words, I have now

196

lived and breathed in and worked out in the sort of humidity that we have. And now, having more

197

information than I once did. I might draw different conclusions than I once did. So those of you who

198

laughed at me then were right to laugh because I have certainly changed my view of this. So that's

199

the way we learn. We think one thing one moment, we have an observation one moment, and then more

200

data is added. And as the data is added, we can change our mind or become even more firm in our

201

presupposition. But it's usually based on this knowledge and experience. We grow. God doesn't.

202

If you walk away with nothing else, know this.

203

God does not change.

204

He does not grow.

205

God is not learning.

206

God is not going to become a better God tomorrow on the basis of what he observes or learns today.

207

God's knowledge is intrinsic to his nature.

208

He knows it all.

209

He knows it all simultaneously.

210

There will never be a fact added to that which he knows.

211

So how does he apply that?

212

If we say that that's true, okay, so he knows, he knows, he knows.

213

All right, so how does that impact you, though?

214

How does that impact us?

215

Well, let's look at verse 5 to see how that knowledge is utilized in God's ministry to his people.

216

Verse 5, you have hedged me behind and before, and you have laid your hand upon me.

217

You know, if you were to take, after church, take your child to the playground,

218

or take your child to any playground during the course of the week,

219

If your child is small enough, if your child is small enough,

220

something you'll notice as you sit on a bench and rest

221

and watch your child exert their energy,

222

as you watch that, something you'll notice if your child is small enough,

223

you'll notice that they oftentimes will look over to you.

224

And the reason they look is they want to make sure you're still there.

225

Your presence provides some comfort.

226

The knowledge that mom or dad or grandma or grandpa,

227

Mimi or papa are still in the building, so to speak,

228

provides comfort to the child.

229

They like to be safeguarded at that age.

230

Well, in verse 5, the psalmist is saying this should be true of all of us.

231

There should be a desire for God to be close, for him to be knowledgeable,

232

for him to be powerful, for him to abide,

233

for us just to reach out and grab his hand and know that it will be there.

234

He puts a hedge around us.

235

Before me, behind me, he puts a hedge around us.

236

He protects us and insulates us, and that's something we should want.

237

That's something we should want.

238

However, the irony is that sometimes we really don't want that.

239

You see, while a four-year-old or a three-year-old or what have you

240

wants their parents' presence and guidance even,

241

and while a four-year-old will seek out the parent's face in a crowd,

242

the same you can't necessarily say of the teenager.

243

The teenager doesn't necessarily have the same view.

244

If you say, hey, good news to your teenage child.

245

Good news, teenage child.

246

We are going to go to the mall.

247

You can bring your friends.

248

And here's the extra good news.

249

As we go to the mall, I will always be there, 10, 15 feet away.

250

I'll just be looking above each of the racks.

251

I'll keep an eye on things and make sure you're safe.

252

Now, how is the teenage child going to react to that?

253

It's not well.

254

Why?

255

Because the teenage child doesn't want your presence there.

256

They like the idea of being out on their own.

257

Well, here's the thing.

258

Even in our own spiritual walk, we can be like that.

259

Even in our own spiritual walk, we can say, yeah, I mean, I want to be kept safe.

260

I mean, I don't want an anvil to fall on my head.

261

I want to be kept safe, but, you know, on my terms.

262

I want you to hedge me, sure.

263

You know, keep me protected from monsters and scary things and car wrecks and the like.

264

But, again, on my terms, let me kind of find my own way.

265

You know, as parents, when we're protective of our children,

266

it's because we know the sort of dangers that are out there.

267

Experientially, we do know more than our kids.

268

And some of us have the scar tissue, perhaps from making bad life choices in the past,

269

that we want to protect our children from.

270

And oftentimes, that's why we do the things that we do.

271

We try to protect and insulate our children based on our knowledge of what they might face.

272

Well, if it's true of us, then how much more is it true of God?

273

God knows your inclinations.

274

He knows the things you think, the things you do.

275

And he knows that which is good for you, and he knows that which is bad for you.

276

And if he loves you, if you're a child, a son or daughter of the Most High God,

277

then you can rightfully expect him to look out for you because you're a child.

278

Whether you want that at all times is a different story.

279

But he will do it either way because he's not a parent who abdicates his responsibilities.

280

Now, one of the ways he hedges us is he uses his spirit.

281

Sometimes we call it our conscience, but he uses his spirit to kind of nudge us or direct us.

282

And he also uses his word.

283

In this book, there's a hedge. There's laws.

284

They're not here because God is a cosmic killjoy.

285

They're here because he loves us, and he knows that if we do what he has said,

286

then things will go well for us.

287

Just like when we give our kids input.

288

We say, eat your broccoli.

289

I know you don't like the broccoli, but eat it because it's good for you.

290

God knows that in every walk of our life.

291

He knows where the lion prowls.

292

He knows alleys that we should not walk down,

293

and he's happy to give us some principles and direction in his book

294

if we'll take the time to learn.

295

However, we can be like perpetual teenagers,

296

and we can say to our parent,

297

We can say, I think I know, Dad.

298

So I've got this figured out.

299

You know, a teenager knows everything, right?

300

I mean, we're all there, so I'm not just castigating teenagers in our midst.

301

As teenagers, we know that at that age, you think you know everything.

302

And as a parent, you look at a teenager and say, no, you don't.

303

Well, God, in the same way, he looks down at us and he goes,

304

I know you don't know everything.

305

And if you will but turn to me, maybe crack open the book for change.

306

If you turn to me, I will teach you and guide you and protect you and lead you in ways that will

307

cause you far less difficulty than if you were left to your own devices. God provides safe lanes

308

to travel in if we take the time to follow. All right, let's look at our final verse, verse 6.

309

Verse 6, such knowledge, such knowledge, it's too wonderful for me. It's high, I cannot attain it.

310

All right, this is the crux of the entire sermon.

311

You know, way back in the first chapter of the book of Ezekiel,

312

the prophet had an encounter with God right from the start

313

that is very difficult to understand, very difficult to parse.

314

The prophet had an encounter with God that, if you remember it,

315

involved wheels and wheels and side wheels,

316

and there was cherub and angels and chariots and other things.

317

Let me read a small snippet of Ezekiel 1 so you can get a sense

318

is what this prophet saw.

319

Ezekiel 1, we read this.

320

It came to pass in the 30th year

321

when I was among the captives by the river

322

that the heavens were opened,

323

and I saw visions of God.

324

And I looked, and behold,

325

a whirlwind was coming out of the north,

326

a great cloud with raging fire engulfing itself.

327

Brightness was all around it,

328

raiding out of its midst like the color of amber,

329

out of the midst of the fire.

330

Now, within it came the likeness of four creatures.

331

And as I looked at the living creatures,

332

Behold, a wheel was on the earth beside each living creature with its four faces.

333

And the appearance of the wheels and the workings was like the color of beryl,

334

and all four had the same likeness.

335

And the appearance of their workings was, as it were, a wheel within a wheel.

336

Now, when they moved, they went forward any one of four directions.

337

They did not turn aside anywhere they went.

338

Let me stop there for a moment.

339

Raise your hand if you can explain all that for us this morning.

340

How about the book of Daniel or Revelation?

341

Raise your hand if you can teach all of Revelation completely and accurately.

342

There's certain things that we can't know or understand.

343

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.

344

Even described to us, even written down so that we can read it,

345

doesn't necessarily mean that we can fully understand.

346

Even the psalmist, even King David says, there's things above my pay grade.

347

Even David, one of the most central figures in the entire book,

348

he says, there's things I don't know.

349

If it was true of David, newsflash, it's true of us this morning.

350

Now, there are certain things that we can know and that we can reasonably, rationally discuss.

351

There are certain things we can study and apprehend.

352

For example, we have visitors in our midst this morning. I see several.

353

If you want to know, as you've come down to the Gulf Coast,

354

where you can get out of the tastiest shrimp po' boy on all the coast,

355

well, I'll tell you, I have done significant research in this area.

356

I have a doctorate in po' boy studies.

357

I think I've got a handle on these things.

358

So there's certain things that we can know.

359

There's certain things we can apprehend.

360

We can subject certain things to trial and testing.

361

We can review and consider all manners of things, including things in this book.

362

And yet there's going to be things in this book that you're never going to fully understand on this side of the veil.

363

Can you live with that?

364

I hope so.

365

Because even David understood that this was the case.

366

That's what the psalmist is declaring in verse 6.

367

In Isaiah 40, the prophet Isaiah described this imbalance

368

between God's knowledge and wisdom and understanding and ours this way.

369

He said,

370

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of God's hand?

371

Who has measured heaven with a span, calculated the dust on the earth in a measure?

372

Who has weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?

373

Who directs the Spirit of the Lord as a counselor who has taught him?

374

With whom did he take counsel, who instructed him, taught him the path of justice?

375

Who taught God knowledge and showed him the way of understanding?

376

What's the answer to that question?

377

No one.

378

See, in Isaiah 40, Isaiah is asking this question.

379

He says, all right, who made the mountains, the stars, the clovers, all these different things?

380

Who did that?

381

By the way, who not only did that, but knows the exact molecular composition of everything in the gallows and cosmos around us?

382

Tell me, who knows that?

383

And if it's God, then who taught him?

384

No one.

385

He knows because he knows because he knows.

386

The creator comprehends everything by virtue of being the creator.

387

The created is always going to look up, always going to be looking up,

388

and because of that, we should always look to him for revelation.

389

The idea that we, as a society or as a people, as a community,

390

that we can calibrate scientifically and measure everything in the world around us

391

and be right on every encounter, that's silly.

392

What does a wise man do?

393

A wise man, if he wants to get wiser, he looks to a source of greater wisdom.

394

He looks to a source of revelation to teach and instruct him.

395

This is the primary tool by which God has done that.

396

Avoid it at your own peril.

397

Leave it growing moss and dust on your bookshelf at your own risk.

398

God has given us a tool and a means by which we might not still understand everything,

399

but by which we can come to understand many things.

400

All right, with our remaining time, I want to broach one final subject.

401

You know, I think if I say in a group of Reformed Presbyterians that God's all-knowing,

402

I don't think anyone's going to say no.

403

I think we knew that this was true just when we walked into the room.

404

We know that God is all-knowing just like we know that God is all-powerful.

405

It's sort of in the job description of being God.

406

However, there's times when we don't understand or like what he does with his knowledge.

407

There are hardships that you've encountered and I've encountered in our own life.

408

And one of the most difficult, challenging things that can happen to us is we can say,

409

God, you knew, and yet you still allowed this to happen.

410

God, you knew what would happen to me, to my child, to my spouse.

411

You knew these things.

412

And furthermore, you had the power to do something about it.

413

And yet you didn't.

414

When we talk about God's power and his knowledge,

415

just theologically, just at arm's length,

416

we can all nod our heads to propositional truth.

417

The problem is when we look at some hardship that has come upon us

418

and we have trouble understanding how did God apply those attributes

419

that he has to this circumstance or to this loss

420

that we have encountered.

421

You know, there's times when it might even be easier

422

for us to believe that God doesn't know.

423

There's times when it might be easier to believe

424

that God doesn't know the future

425

rather than to try to reconcile the fact that he knows

426

but still allowed hardship to enter into our lives.

427

Some people, they try to explain away

428

kind of the questions that come from that

429

by saying, well, maybe God doesn't know.

430

That's the premise of a theology called open theism.

431

It's the idea that God's just as shocked at bad news as we are.

432

But it's not the case.

433

God is never shocked.

434

God is never surprised.

435

Today's text, any of the number of readings we've quoted from,

436

any number of other readings we haven't quoted from, say the same thing.

437

God's not out of the loop with regards to anything that happens in the world around us.

438

So why then? Why?

439

Do bad things happen with an all-knowing and all-powerful God on the throne?

440

Well, that's the topic that's launched a thousand sermons.

441

We're not going to try to answer all that this morning, but I will say this.

442

The Bible's answer to these things is pretty direct.

443

You know, for a very short season, a really short season,

444

the time we spend on this globe is but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of eternity.

445

So for a very, very short season, God does allow what we would call bad things,

446

Because those bad things are the means for overwhelmingly good outcomes, even if we can't see it.

447

Now let me explain by way of a very important example.

448

If you had gone to the disciples in about 32 A.D.

449

If you had gone to the disciples and told them that Jesus needed to die, in fact he had to die,

450

what sort of response would the disciples give prior to his death?

451

They would have said, no way.

452

In fact, when Jesus himself told his own disciples that his death was imminent,

453

they said, uh-uh.

454

They said it can't be.

455

Perish the thought.

456

Why?

457

Because that would be a bad outcome, right?

458

That would be a bad thing.

459

That would be the worst thing.

460

If you were a disciple of Jesus Christ,

461

the idea that this one who was raising the dead and healing the blind,

462

the idea that this one would be taken from you and nailed to a cross,

463

that was the worst possible thing that could ever happen.

464

And yet it's the exact thing that God appointed.

465

Jesus knew that his own death was the means for a far greater good,

466

for the salvation of the very people he was talking to.

467

That's one example, but it's a pivotal example that demonstrates this.

468

In a short season, God can and does appoint things you'll never like

469

and you'll never understand to accomplish a greater goal.

470

You might not understand what that good is on the here and now.

471

You might go to your own demise.

472

You might go into your own grave not knowing why God did X, Y, Z in your past.

473

And yet, our confidence is not what we know.

474

Our confidence is that He knows.

475

Faith is reaching up your hand, knowing that God grabs it and leads you.

476

Faith is not based on you understanding every direction He might take you,

477

but trusting His character that He'll lead you in the right way.

478

This holds true in good seasons of our life and bad seasons.

479

The trials and tribulations you're facing this week or may have faced in weeks previous, they're no fun.

480

Jesus wept when he came alongside those who were hurting, as many of us may be.

481

But know this, in the scales of eternity, they're for a very short season.

482

And if you examine these things closely, especially through the lens, the eyes of retrospect,

483

you may find that God uses the hardest things, the hardest things, to draw us closer to himself.

484

To grow our faith.

485

To make us more like Christ.

486

This week, trust.

487

Father knows best.

488

Trust in his wisdom.

489

Trust that all things do work together for good.

490

Even if you cannot see that good right now.

491

Trust that God knows and in his time,

492

our omniscient, omnipotent God will validate

493

every ounce of faith that you place in him this week.

494

Let's pray.