SCRIPTURE: Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Matthew 6:8 NIV
THOUGHT: This isn’t really a devotion about omniscience, but what an amazing truth Jesus taught about God our Father. Jesus, who knew God best and called him by the intimate name Abba. Jesus, who went out to the wilds to ask for wisdom and insight early in the day and late at night, and sweat blood asking for the suffering ahead to pass. Yet he believed his Father knew what he needed before he asked.
But if God already knows, why should we ask? I think a few things based on my study of Scripture and my own prayer life. God is relational – just knowing things doesn’t get you relationship with the people you love. God also loves unity, and a unity between his Spirit and ours means we have to talk things out. We can say “your will be done” until we’re blue in the face, but what joy it is to God when our will is finally perfectly in line with his own and we talk to him from that place. “Come now, let us reason together says the Lord (Isa. 1:18 ESV),” is an unlikely invitation to relationship. Some translations render that “talk about these things,” or “settle this” or even “argue.” (See https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Isaiah%201%3A18 for all translations.)
God created us to think and talk and wants us to increase our abilities to do so with him. He likes the sound of your voice.
PRAYER: Oh God, thank you for the example and words of Jesus, encouraging us that although you know everything, you created us for two-way relationship, not one way authoritarianism.
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Blogger Amy Clemens is the author of Walking When You’d Rather Fly: Meditations on Faith After the Fall. In it she explores childhood sexual abuse and how it impacted her faith (or lack thereof) for four decades. You’ll find not only her story, but better yet, the Big Story of God.
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