God Knows Us

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Our reading, titled God Knows Us, was written by Wynn Collier. I recently saw a photograph of Michelangelo's Sculpture of Moses, in which a close-up view showed a small bulging muscle on Moses' right arm.

This muscle is the extensor digiti minimi, and the contraction only appears when someone lifts their pinky. Michelangelo, known as a master of intricate details, paid close attention to the human bodies he sculpted, adding intimate features most everyone else would miss. Michelangelo knew the human body in ways few other sculptors have, but the details he carved into granite were his attempts to reveal something deeper. The soul, the interior life of human beings.

And, of course, there Michelangelo always fell short. Only God knows the deepest realities of the human heart. Whatever we see of one another, no matter how attentive or insightful it might be, is only a shadow of the truth. But God sees deeper than the shadows. You know me, Lord, the prophet Jeremiah said.

You see me. God's knowledge of us isn't theoretical or cerebral. He doesn't observe us from a distance. Rather, he peers into the hidden realities of who we are. God knows the depths of our interior lives. Even those things we struggle to understand ourselves. No matter our struggles or what's going on in our hearts, God sees us and truly knows us. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Jeremiah chapter 12 verses 1 through 3. You are always righteous, Lord, when I bring a case before you. Yet I would speak with you about your justice. Why does the way of the wicked prosper?

Why do all the faithless live at ease? You have planted them and they have taken root. They grow and bear fruit. You are always on their lips but far from their hearts. Yet you know me, Lord.

You see me and test my thoughts about you. Drag them off like sheep to be butchered. Set them apart for the day of slaughter. Let's pray. Lord, science continues to unveil just how fearfully and wonderfully made we are. And it's deeply comforting to know that the One who made us knows our every detail intimately and cares for us like no other. And we are grateful. Thank you, Lord. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.