“God Knows Us Full Well”
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 (139:14) – September 7, 2025
If you look at the news online, or on television, or listen to the radio or podcasts, many people often look for knowledgeable experts. Experts in their field or craft. People who know things. Think about it: cooking shows have culinary experts, home repair shows have building experts, news reports have experts in various fields, talk shows have behavioral experts to help solve the relationship problems of society, even newspapers have horoscopes written by psychics who are supposedly experts in astrology. Expert opinions!
This craving for information, for people who know about things … I am afraid that I get sucked right into it. I go to people who are experts in their fields, and try to pick their brains and get what information I can, so I can masquerade as a sort of an expert, too. I like to think I know about things. And, I do. I know lots of things. I know lots about how to be a chaplain, and about music, and about the Bible, but that doesn’t hold a candle to the amount God knows!
God knows—now there is an expert opinion. Let’s look at the scripture reading for today. “O LORD, You have searched me and known me, You know when I sit down and when I rise up, You discern my thought from far away.” That truly is knowing. God knows every part of me. King David wrote this psalm many centuries ago, and its message still strikes home and hits my heart with penetrating directness.
These verses from this psalm are among the most direct and poetic description of God’s omniscience in the whole Bible. Omniscience. Knowing absolutely everything. That’s a pretty scary thought, if we sit down and think about it. It’s a good thing that God is loving, caring and merciful. We just have a shadow of understanding about how God knows us, yet it’s a loving, caring and intimate knowing. The omniscience of our knowing by our heavenly Father.
When a word is repeated in a passage in the Bible, that is a way of underlining that word, indicating that word is particularly important. The Hebrew word “yada,” or “to know,” appears in today’s reading four times. The emphasis of this rich biblical word, this “concept of ‘knowledge’ is a critical element of meaningful relationship. We are to know God, just as God knows us.” [1]
When you and I contemplate God, the totality, the tremendous experience of God’s knowledge is just “too wonderful” for us! That is us, as limited humans, trying to understand and contemplate the Lord. That is the eternal God who created the heavens and the earth! We read here in Psalm 139 that God’s capacity for knowing is utterly beyond comprehension, so far beyond us limited humans that we feel like we are reaching up to touch the moon, much less the stars in the sky. King David said, “so high that I cannot attain it,” in verse 6. And yet – God wants to be known! Known by us.
This Sunday is when the church in Scotland celebrates the beginning of the season of Creation, when we celebrate God creating the world, the galaxy, the whole universe. As we contemplate God’s vast creative power, let us consider the creation of a single human life. Our psalmist considers it, too! Verse 13 says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” This is a glimpse of the psalmist’s understanding of the nature of God, of knowing God!
“This points to a God whose love for God’s own creation extends to concern, since this human creation is finite and therefore not perfect. Yet, it does not lessen but instead heightens the amazing and magnificent artistry of God’s creation. Indeed, this recognition becomes reason for praising God and affirming the self’s ultimate worth in the sight of God (v. 14).” [2]
God knows. God knows my circumstances, knows whether I’m sitting or getting up or lying down. God even knows what I’m thinking, before I can say a word. Talk about being an expert! The Lord knows my psychological makeup, my emotions and my heart, so much better than I do myself.
It’s a good thing to get to know ourselves. It’s a worthy study, and one that would be useful in helping us to understand others. I like to tell myself that I know myself pretty well. I’ve seen a therapist for a number of years who has helped me come to understand my own thoughts and emotions better. He’s helped me to understand how I relate to others and why I act and react in certain ways. At times, after years of therapy, I may fancy myself somewhat of an expert on myself. But in reality, I am not. Sometimes I may think I am, but I’m just fooling myself.
God knows everything about me, too. Everything. God knows all the flaws, all the rough spots, every praiseworthy feature as well as everything that isn’t. And–here’s the amazing part–God loves me anyway! Even with all that intimate knowledge about every single aspect of our character as well as our character flaws, God loves us anyway!
And, it isn’t just all about me. God knows each of us in the same way. He knows each one of you, intimately, too. The Lord has searched you and known you, and is acquainted with all your ways. And, God loves each of us, even more intensely than we can possibly imagine.
Sometimes, certain authors have a way of capturing an idea in a special way. It’s that way with Max Lucado, a recent Christian author for both children and adults. I know I have referenced this before, and it’s just so good that I have to quote it again! This is a quote from Prayer: A Heavenly Invitation, which describes just the idea I’ve been trying to communicate.
”If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If He had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk, He’ll listen. He can live anywhere in the universe, and He chose your heart. And the Christmas gift He sent you in Bethlehem? Face it, friend. He’s crazy about you.” [3]
Friends, God knows all about us, and He loves us anyway. What else can we do but fall on our knees before God in praise, thanksgiving and adoration? Thank God for His boundless love towards you and towards me.
Alleluia, amen.
(Suggestion: visit me at my other blogs: matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers. #PursuePEACE – and A Year of Being Kind . Thanks!
[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/second-sunday-after-epiphany-2/commentary-on-psalm-1391-6-13-18-2
[2] http://www.theafricanamericanlectionary.org/PopupLectionaryReading.asp?LRID=27
Pastor, Preacher, Pray-er 