Tell God Your Weather News

How’s The Weather?

Hey, how are you doing today? And how is the weather where you are?

I don’t mean the meteorological weather around you; I mean the weather of your internal world.

Is it bright and sunny? Cloudy and raw? Clear and calm? Blustery or stormy?

No matter how it appears to others from the outside, you alone know how you’re really doing.

Actually, that’s not true. There is Someone else who knows.

Searched and Known

“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.” (Psalm 139: 1-3)

Have you recently thought about the fact that God knows you through and through? It’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about over the last month. And the longer I’ve sat with these three verses, the more I’m realizing just how incredible they are…that these words are truly good news.

I think we sometimes think, “Yes. God knows me inside and out. Like that,” (snaps finger).

It’s as if we think that, because he’s God, he uses his superhero x-ray glasses to scan and see right through us without any effort on his part.

But that word, “SEARCHED”. Did you catch it? That’s how God’s knowing of us is described.

When we search, it’s because we are looking into or for something. It’s a word that also suggests careful inquiry that isn’t accomplished with a snap of the fingers, but takes time. It takes time because the thing being looked into or for isn’t just hanging about on the surface. It is hidden. Below the ground. Out of sight.

We could also consider the word from the point of view of a “search and rescue mission”. In searching like this, there is deep commitment to turning over every stone with great care, concern, and attention. What’s at stake is so great that, although moving quickly, the rescue team can’t afford to be careless. Instead, they hone all their focus & faculties to the task at hand, keeping their senses wide open to any sign of life. It is the kind of searching that is fully invested and committed.

His Heart Towards Us

What’s my point in saying all this? It’s to say that this verse is not a portrait of some remote, uninterested, but all-knowing force. That would be cold, impersonal, and unengaged. Rather unlike the word “search”.

Instead, the word shows us that he cares. People don’t search for things they don’t care about. They let them go with a shrug and move on. But not God.

Like a loving friend who listens and asks questions to draw their chum out, is how God knows and relates to you. His knowing of you is active and hands-on because he is paying close attention with great commitment and care. Because he cares, he notices. And because he notices, he knows.

This is his heart towards you and me - he’s always actively interested in us. And, when we see his heart towards us, we realize that he also understands the weather of our internal worlds. He knows us as well as we know ourselves. Better even. So we bring the weather of our day to him and discover there is a grace to be found in this.

Today’s Forecast: 100% Chance of Grace

The thing about weather is that it changes. And that’s okay, that’s what weather does. But what I appreciate about the beginning verses of Psalm 139 are the way they make me come back to the truest things.

They say to me…

“Are you loved?” Yes. “Well alright then.”

“Are you seen?” Yes. “Well alright then.”

“Are you known.” Yes. “Well alright then.”

They encourage me that all will be well because I am loved, seen, and known, regardless of the current weather, and in that, I find the security and stability of God’s grace.

This grace can bring a myriad of things. For one, a greater sense of freedom to share with God what is actually on our heart. He already knows, but, more importantly, is interested.

This grace also offers peace and comfort when we acknowledge that what matters to us, what is occupying our individual thoughts, also matters to God – after all, he’s taken the time to understand and “discern [our] thoughts from afar.” As we name what we need, we can maximize our peace by bringing our cares to the one who cares for us.

It’s a grace that offers fellowship. A fellowship that comes from the sense of being together in something with someone who is committed to us. This fellowship maximizes joy because it becomes joy shared. But it also brings comfort as he shares in our sorrows too. Whether delighting or mourning, we are not alone.

Best of all though, it brings stability. Stability because, since he is with us in all our weather, there can still be freedom, peace, comfort, fellowship, and joy no matter the weather.

This grace doesn’t mean we dismiss what’s going on. On the contrary. Because this grace is ours, we face the weather of each day and bring it to the One who knows and cares.

I don’t know who needs to hear this word of grace today, but you are loved, seen, and known by a God who cares for you. I for one need this word today, and I pray it breathes life and shines his light into the specific weather your heart, soul, mind, or spirit are facing today. God knows and he cares.

Kemi