God's Omniscience

Day 5, Anchors of Truth

God’s Omniscience (All-knowing)

Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. Psalm 147:5 (ESV)

              Many nights as a kid I cried myself to sleep. I believed in God and trusted him in the best way possible, but I didn’t always understand. How long was eternity? Would there be baseball in heaven? Were my pets coming with me to heaven? My mom comforted me in the best way she could, but even her finite human brain didn’t have the answers: “Sometimes we just have to trust him. He knows everything and has it all worked out.”

              One of the huge truths about God that I cling to often is the one my mom used to comfort me with all those years ago: He knows everything. Because he knows everything, nothing catches him by surprise. The sicknesses that run rampant in our classrooms, the terrible parent/teacher conference we just experienced, and the child who was bullied in secret are not hidden from God. He sees it all and knows it all.

              But that leads to a bigger question: Why? If he knows it all and sees everything, why doesn’t he intervene? Why doesn’t he change the family of the child who is being abused? Or why won’t he step in when the superintendent is acting as a lone wolf and sabotaging the entire district? Why doesn’t he supernaturally equip every teacher with the ability to teach all children effortlessly with the highest results? If he knows so much, why are we still struggling?

              This question goes right along with another question: why do bad things happen to good people? And I don’t know the answer. There are some instances where we will never know the reason until we get to heaven. But one thing I know for sure, and that’s a scripture we referenced earlier this week: And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28, ESV). God is working things out for our good.

              Our good according to God may not look like our good according to us. He sees the areas in our lives that need sanding or pruning, so he allows the harder things. Maybe God knows the future of an organization and he takes us out of our job to protect us from the fall. And what if that “perfect” person for us is actually the devil in disguise so he ends that relationship suddenly, leaving us heartbroken and distraught.

              God’s ways aren’t our ways, but the truth of his omniscience is worth standing on. Just knowing that he knows what’s coming and he’s in charge takes the pressure off. I need to make time to listen, trust, and obey what he tells me and let him take care of the rest. In my heart. Life. Home. Job. And future.

Do the Heart Work

1.      Does knowing that God is all knowing bring you comfort or frustration?

2.      God’s omniscience is an anchor of truth you can stand on. How can this knowledge lead you closer to his heart?

3.      How can knowing that God is all knowing change how you run your classroom?

Digging Deeper

              Read Psalm 139:1-18 (ESV)

O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw my unformed substance in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me,  when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.

              There is no where we can go that God doesn’t see, no thought he doesn’t know, and nothing that catches him off guard. He knows it all: our thoughts we try to hide, our secrets that control our lives, and the motivations we think no one sees. There’s nothing hidden from him. This is either comforting or not. How does this hit you today?

If You Get Spare Time

              Have you ever considered that all the knowledge we wish we possessed about our students, that God actually holds it? Have you ever thought about the fact that his Holy Spirit lives inside the hearts of believers? And have you ever considered the reality that when we are at a total loss as to what to do in our classroom or how to help a certain child, we have the all-knowing resource living inside our hearts? We need only ask. Take some time and talk to him about your classroom. Afterall, he is the Master of our classroom anyway.