Known - a Five-Day Devotional by Tauren WellsSample

KNOWN | Day 3 | THE INVITATION

I love what my father-in-law once said in a message he was preaching. He mentioned that Luke 12 tells us that God has numbered the hairs on our heads. He pointed out that not only does God know the sum of the hairs on your head but that he’s also gone so far as to have a number for each one! He knows that hair #674, #223, and #62 came out in your comb this morning. He knows that #112, #332, #27, #96, and #705 are a little grayer than they used to be. I had never really thought about it, and at first it struck me as humorous. Then I felt the full weight and reality of the implied truth of that verse. God sees, investigates, and keeps track of every… single… detail… about His children. Not a freckle, scar, hurt, moment, or detail about our lives is overlooked. Considering this profound truth, my heart echoes David’s, realizing that the eyes of the Master are upon him, asking, “Who am I that you are mindful of me?” Amazing. Can you wrap your heart around that?

Another important truth lies along that same train of thought. I recently read Peter Scazzero’s book The Emotionally Healthy Leader, and in it, he points out something that struck me. He suggests that although God has full access to information about us, that doesn’t mean He has full access to us. Access to information and an invitation to intimacy are two very different things. 

David alludes to this in Psalm 139. In fact, he uses verses 1–22—twenty-two whole verses—to speak about just how intimately known by God we really are. You could summarize the passage like this: “Lord, you have all the information about me! There is nothing you don’t know!” But then in verse 23 David cries out, “Search me, O God!” May that be our prayer. “Lord, we don’t want you to just know the details; we invite You into them.” 

I think the enemy of our souls wants us to settle for having an information-based relationship with God. That kind of relationship gives us a false sense of what it means to know God and to be known by Him. Consider Adam and Eve. I think that when Satan tempted them with the forbidden fruit, he knew what their response to failure would be. He knew that as soon as they saw that they were exposed they would go into hiding. Humanity’s response to failure has not changed since then. We still hide, and the distance we try to place between ourselves and God is exactly what Satan wants. It’s what he’s always wanted. 

We think covering and isolating ourselves from God’s presence is safer than revealing ourselves and inviting God’s presence into our struggle. But what was God’s response to Adam and Eve? He didn’t ask what they did. He already had that information. He asked them where they were. He wanted to know if they would invite Him into their failure. In times of hurt, loneliness, or failure, we tend to hide from Christ, but—hear this, friends—because of his sacrifice for our sins, we now get to hide in Christ. It’s just as Paul said in Romans 8:1: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."