God Knows You

Three words that can either terrify you or comfort you. When we are told “God knows you” we often turn our minds to guilt and sin. While we may indeed be guilty of sin, there is something much better in these three words. God has known us since creation, and He is waiting for us.

At that time, Jesus decided to go to Galilee.  And he found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”  Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.  Philip found Nathanael, and he said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”  Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  Philip said to him, “Come and see.”  Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!”  Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?”  Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”  Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!  You are the King of Israel!”  Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe?  You shall see greater things than these.”  And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”

John 1.43-51

When Nathaniel heard that God already knew him, he wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t thinking about being guilty of sin. He had been waiting for God his entire life. Now, Jesus shows up knowing who he was before ever hearing his name. Only God knows us that well.

How can we get to the point of joy when we think of God knowing everything about us? It begins with accepting that He knows more about us than we know about ourselves. Most especially, he knows our temptations and our weaknesses.

If God was going to hold our weaknesses against us, He would not have come to save us. It isn’t that God is ‘ok’ with our sins. He most definitely is not ‘ok’ with our sins. Despite our sins, He still came to save us and call us into His Kingdom. That should comfort us, not scare us.

When we talk to our friends, with very few exceptions, we hide certain bits of the story that we think work against our agenda. The advice we get from our friends falls short not because our friends don’t care, but because they don’t know the whole story. God knows the whole story.

When God gives us His advice, He already knows our weaknesses and how we will respond. Our friends shy away from ‘tough love’ for fear that we would end our friendship. The result is failure not because we don’t want to succeed but because we didn’t tell it all. God knows it all.

Since God already knows everything there is to know, let’s stop trying to hide. Adam couldn’t hide in The Garden (Gensis 3.8) and we cannot hide behind silence. The only way for Adam to be saved was to come into the open and meet God face to face. God is waiting for us too.

Now is our chance to meet God face to face in His Church through the Mysteries (sacraments) of the Church, most clearly through Holy Confession and Holy Communion. I encourage you to make Holy Confession and Holy Communion a regular part of your spiritual journey, to see God.

When we stand face to face with God, our soul is made bare and His Spirit washes away our guilty conscience. He is waiting and ready to forgive us and welcome us home. He has proven that time and again for so many others. He will prove it to you too, because God knows you.