Does God Learn? - Bible Wonders

Did you ever wonder? Did you ever wonder?

I do. Did you ever wonder? Why the sun always rises, but the stars never fall?

Why dry land is never satisfied by water? And why fire never says enough? The wonder of, does God learn, right? I mean, there's an interesting question as God kind of walked with me through that one this morning as I was pondering, you know, you would think that God knows everything, so how does it exactly work that the letter lamed in Hebrew has to do with loving and learning? And I know how much I love to learn, and even the idea of being able to teach means that you must love to learn. And clearly, if we're made in God's image, then somehow or another, he must love to learn, so that begs the question, you know, what does God need to learn if he already knows it?

You know, you would think he knows everything. And exactly, I don't know how all this works, but these are some things that came to me as I began to pray about this and push into it as, you know, one of the things that I have been doing is, you know, translating the Gospel of John from English to Hebrew, and I spent a lot of time on the second verse of that yesterday and trying to understand how exactly all that relates to what I'm studying, and I was enjoying my learning when I came across this question in my mind, and so I asked God the question, and he kind of brought it back to my mind that, you remember that in that famous, somewhat scary passage in Matthew chapter 7, verse 23, where Jesus says, you know, depart from me, I never knew you. And so, you know, if you back into it from that statement, you go, okay, well, there's something that Jesus obviously did not know.

He did not know these people. And so clearly, one of the things that God must love to learn is about me, is about you. And I began to ponder that and think about it, and I thought about how at times my children closed themselves off, and I can't seem to break through their, I don't know, shell, their mask, whatever you want to call their pose that they're going through, and you're not getting through to what's really going on.

Certainly, I've experienced that with my wife as well, where she's not being truly open to me, and so it's hard to know, right? And so as I began to think, wow, this is a really interesting thing that God loves to learn from when we're open and, like, when our kids open up to us and share how they're really feeling, how they're really hurt. Well, what I went through this morning when I got up is our beloved dog, Corgi, which was my father's dog and my mother-in-law's dog, who both went to be with the Lord, to be with the Lord in the last few years, and now Corgi is 17. And this morning, when he went to get up, he was yelping and screaming because he could not get his legs to work the way they should or his hips to work the way they should.

And I just could tell he was really, really upset, but I would love to know where he was really hurting and what was really going on with him that he wasn't able to stand. But fortunately, as I prayed, God said, pick him up, which you never pick up Corgi, isn't it? And when I went to pick him up, he went to bite me because you don't pick up Corgi. But then he didn't. And then he let me pick him up.

And he was lighter than I really expected him to be because he's got so much hair. And then I just held him and I said, it's going to be okay, Corgi, it's going to be okay. And I could feel him just relax. And it was as if my father was coming, you know, my father always said that Corgi loved me, although I never really sensed that a whole lot. But I could tell that Corgi responded to me as if I was his master and he actually did relax. And somehow or another, he knew it was going to be okay. And as he relaxed, apparently his joints relaxed because in a few moments after I held him and just, I was thinking about how Jesus holds a sheep, you know, and loves on him. And I set Corgi down on his feet and he began to walk and went outside and pretty soon he loosened up and he seemed to be okay, which again, you know, this may not last long for Corgi.

It's sort of a scary proposition for us. But I was thinking, you know, if I could just relax in the master's arms like that, let him know where I'm hurting and so that he can get me back in joint. Right. And what a neat thing as I began to think, God loves to learn. What does God love to learn about?

He loves to learn about us. And in order to do that, I guess that requires deep prayer. It requires a deep communion. And so that was what I was learning on yesterday is this whole idea of commune, you know, that God said that he would commune with us above the mercy seat. In Exodus 25, 22, it was this beautiful idea that he would commune with us above this mercy seat.

And when it says commune in that Old Testament, in that passage, it's using the word tabar, which means to speak. And so he's going to speak to us, but we got to speak to him. And that's true communion. And through communion, as he speaks to us, we learn, and he learns about us, learns about how we feel, learns about what's really going on inside. And I think that it's a beautiful thing that he loves, obviously. You know, our hearts are like his like his hearts.

And so we think about when your children are in that situation, or maybe it's a pet or something that you were just dying to understand what they're really feeling. Well, that's how God feels about us. And so as you think about the wonder of how does God learn? Well, I'm not sure how it all works.

I'm sure that tabar has something to do with it. We have to speak. And we also have to listen, right?

And we have to listen to what he says. And interestingly, you know, we get a chance to speak what we're really feeling, because that's what God wants to know is what really is coming from our heart, which is what that word heart begins with the lamed, which is that whole idea that what we're talking about today, the lamed is the letter that has to do with loving and learning. And you love to learn. And again, because you learn, you can then teach because you love to learn this stuff. Well, very cool to think that God has that same capacity. And he looks at his kids with that same huge desire, because he really, really wants to get to know you. Thanks for listening.