“Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak.” (Jeremiah 1:4-7)
Lucas and Aunt Jo were riding in the back seat of a taxi cab. This was Lucas’s first time ever to visit New York City, and he was really excited. This morning, Aunt Jo had taken him to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. In a book at a museum there, they had looked up the name of Lucas’s great-great-grandfather, who had come to America from Germany in 1906.
Lucas wondered if his great-great-grandfather had been able to speak English when he first moved to America. He wondered how long it had taken him to learn it. Lucas loved learning languages. He had been studying Spanish through a video class at home two days a week, and he was already able to say a few sentences.
The taxi-cab driver looked back at Lucas in the rearview mirror. From his brown eyes and dark complexion, Lucas wondered whether the taxi-cab driver was Latino, and if maybe he spoke Spanish. Maybe this man was an immigrant, too, like the ones Lucas had learned about at Ellis Island. Maybe this man would one day have great-great-grandchildren coming to visit New York City for the first time. In his mind, Lucas tried to come up with the right Spanish words he could say to ask the taxi-cab driver some questions, but he just couldn’t think of what to say or how to say it. Besides, he was not even sure whether the man would know Spanish!
Those of us who are trying to learn more and more about the world God put us in can find it overwhelming! There are so many people on the globe, and they are all kinds of people. They speak different languages. They have different hobbies and interests. They look very different from one another. They have different kinds of relationships with one another. They live in many different types of places. There is no way any human being alive today could know or talk to everybody on the planet today – not even with the help of modern technology.
But God can know. He created people. He invented their languages. He is able to understand all their cultural differences, and he knows the dreams and needs of each and every person alive. Not only that, but He knows the dreams and needs of every person who has already lived and died, and of every person who will ever live and die in the future! Do you think this is incredible? It would be unbelievable, if we were talking about just a human being. But this passage in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:4-7) teaches us that our Creator knows us more closely than any other person.
Lucas might wish he could talk to people who have already died and asked them questions – people like his own great-great-grandfather! Or Lucas might wish he knew even enough Spanish to be able to ask the taxi-cab driver where he had come from. Maybe Lucas would have liked to see all of New York City, to really learn it and know it “inside and out.” But Lucas could do none of those things. Why? Because he is only human. We can be thankful to know a God Who is great and good enough to understand everything about everyone.
Because He is God, God knows us and everything around us better than anyone.
My Response:
» Do I get overwhelmed sometimes just thinking of all there must be that I do NOT know?
» Who can I trust to know everything and everyone more closely than anyone else?
» How can I show that I believe God is as great and good as He says He is in His Word?