Intimate Knowledge

When we think about God, many things come to mind.

We think of Him as the first Person in the Trinity.

We think of Him as the Father.

We think of Him as Creator.

God is omniscient

God is eternal.

God is love.

God is all of these and much more.

Because God has so many qualities, one thing that is easily overlooked is how intimately God knows us.

The Psalmist understood this intimate knowledge.

Psalm 139:13 (NET) – Certainly you made my mind and heart; you wove me together in my mother’s womb.

In fact, the Psalmist understood this very well.

Psalm 139:16 (NET) – Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. All the days ordained for me were recorded in your scroll before one of them came into existence.

The prophet Jeremiah understood this once the Lord spoke to him.

Jeremiah 1:4-5 (NET) – The LORD said to me, “Before I formed you in the womb I chose you. Before you were born I set you apart. I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.”

Yes, God knows each of us intimately.

He knows us so well that He knows what He has planned for our lives.

He knew this even before we were aware of ourselves.

How is this even possible?

The Psalmist understood this as well.

Psalm 92:5 (NET) – How great are your works, O LORD! Your plans are very intricate!

Someone once said, “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”

God is the provider of gifts.

Have you found yours?

Have you given it away?

If either answer is no, now would be a good time to talk to God about it.

He has known it all along.

Blessings,

Jim Pokorny

The Other Brother Jim

http://otherbrotherjim.blogspot.com

Turn Around

I take the same route to and from work every day.

There are some advantages to this.

One of the biggest advantages is that I have learned from experience where I need to be more careful.

There is a hill I must descend that is rather steep.

I need to monitor my speed there so I can stop safely.

There is one traffic light that changes more frequently than the others.

I need to wait an extra second or two before proceeding as someone will inevitably run the red light.

There is a left turn I must make from a busy highway.

Experience has taught me to make sure I am in the correct lane well before I get there.

Spring will be upon us soon.

Experience has taught me that I will be sharing the road with more bicyclists as the weather warms up.

There are also some disadvantages to taking the same path each and every day.

The biggest by far is not being familiar with alternate routes.

I recall one time in particular when traffic was diverted off the main highway onto another road because of an accident.

Suddenly, I found myself in unfamiliar territory.

I quickly discovered that I had absolutely no idea where I was.

I was simply followed the car in front of me.

He was simply following the car in front of him, and so forth.

It is likely that most of us naturally assumed that someone ahead of us knew how to get us back on track.

After several minutes I concluded that this was not the case.

If I continued to follow the pack I was only going to get farther away from where I wanted to be.

I had a decision to make.

At my next opportunity, I exited the highway and left the others.

Although I was in unfamiliar territory, I had a general sense of the direction I needed to travel.

After what seemed like a very long time, I finally spotted a landmark I was familiar with.

Using it as a guide, I made my way back to the path I knew would take me where I needed to go.

I wondered how far away the others were by then.

Life is a journey.

Sometimes we discover that we are not on the right path.

At that point we have a decision to make.

John 14:6 (NIV) - Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

If we are not on the right path in life, we put distance between ourselves and Jesus.

There is only one solution.

We must stop and go back.

The longer we wait to do this, the greater is the distance we will have to travel.

C. S. Lewis said, “We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”

Blessings,

Jim Pokorny

The Other Brother Jim

http://otherbrotherjim.blogspot.com