God Knows Me

"Listen to me, all you in distant lands!
Pay attention, you who are far away!
The Lord called me before my birth;
from within the womb he called me by name." Isaiah 49:1

"You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
¹⁵ You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
¹⁶ You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed. ¹⁷ How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.
They cannot be numbered!" Psalm 139:13-17

I've heard this saying many, many times before- God knows me. In fact, I may have blogged about it before too! The reality is though, that I never really thought too much about it. Last night as I was driving home from dance class though, I was thinking about this, about the fact that God knows me, and I really felt like I needed to look into the word "knows" more. So then I started thinking more about the fact that God knows me, and I realized that this random line of thinking was not so random.

God knows me.

Think about what that simple sentence says. Think about when you use it. I don't say "I know Brad Pitt." Because I simply don't. I know of him, but I certainly don't know him personally. But I can say "I know Zander" because he's my child and I know him more than I know myself. And I do know Zander better than I know myself! Zander is my precious child... when he was a baby, he refused to sleep in his crib. It didn't take us too long to decide that he simply wasn't going to sleep in his crib- he wanted to sleep with Mommy and Daddy. So we did that. Pretty much, for the first three years of his life, Zander slept with us. Oh, we tried other options. We put him in a twin bed early- at about 9 months, thinking he just wanted more space. Nope, it wasn't the space. What he wanted was the comfort and security that sleeping with Mommy and Daddy provided. He got the best nights of sleep when we slept together all night.

"Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the LORD has been good to you." Psalm 116:7

I get my best nights of sleep when I rest in the Lord. When I can give Him all my worries and problems, and curl up with His love cushioning me, the rest is sweeter than any other. It's the love and security and comfort of having a Heavenly Father who truly does love me and know me. And it's more than just God knowing me, He knew me before I was born. Let's think about that for a minute. He knew me before I was born. Thinking about what we've already pointed out about knowing someone- that's pretty cool. God knew me before I was a person. God knew everything about me, and He knew my spirit and knew everything that I was going to go through in life.

Don't you wish that you could do the same for your children? I wish I could know what trials and troubles my precious children are going to face, because then I could at least try and help prepare them for those struggles. Instead, I have to commit them to My Father, to My God, the same One who knew me before I was born, knew my children before they were born. And oh, how He loves them so much. To think that God could love my children even more than I do is remarkable, because they are such wonderful little people, full of the love of Christ.

I know this has maybe been a little disjointed this morning. But I had to get both these thoughts out. See, last night, after my random trail of thoughts driving, Zander crawled into bed with us. He curled up, right in the small of my back just like he did as a wee baby. And I just felt my body flood with love for this little man. Even though I knew that my night's rest may be terrible as a result of him being there, the fact that he felt safe and secure and was sleeping soundly just made me the happiest mom in the world. God is the exact same way. He wants us to feel safe and secure and comforted wrapped up in His arms. I can't be the only one who lays in bed at night sometime, simply dwelling on the problems of the day- or worse- the problems of tomorrow. Sleep takes a long time coming when I dwell on those problems. So I'll toss and turn and then all the sudden it will be like, oh yeah. And then I pray about it. I talk to God a little, share my concerns, and then what do you know- I get to sleep after that.

God knows me. He knows my every thought, my every problem, and He loves me and wants me to feel secure and safe. Sometimes though, I have to want that too. I have to be willing to give God my troubles, and I have to be willing to let Him give me that much-needed rest. I don't know why I keep that at arms length sometimes. I'm sure my son thinks the same thing. He'll spend a day being Mr. Independent, and insist that he doesn't need snuggles or help or such. But by the end of the day, he's missed Mommy. So then we get extra cuddle time at the end of the day, because he's missed Mommy, and he realizes it.

I want to stop being Miss Independent, and just float away in the arms of The Comforter. The One who knows me, and who has known me for longer than I've been alive.