Scripture Reflections

But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. (Matt. 10:30)
 
Not a single one of us could count the hairs on his or her head, and yet God both can and has.
 
Jesus’ point in Matthew 10 has multiple levels. First, God knows us more than we know ourselves. That alone should cause us to stop, to wonder, to pray! We all have aspects of our heart of which we are ignorant. We think we know ourselves, but we have blind spots, places where we simply “don’t know what we don’t know.” We act according to un-understood desires, needs, and worries. We have un-scrutinized longings and fears. Our vision and understanding are partial; we only know ourselves in limited sense. And yet there is not a single aspect of our being and identity that God does not know! According to Psalm 139, he is “intimately acquainted with all our ways.”
 
But Jesus’ point is not just that God knows every recess of our being and heart—even the ones of which we are ignorant. His point is how much God values us! Knowing us intimately, more intimately than we know ourselves, would be terrifying if it were not coupled to tender love and appreciation. After all, many of the dark recesses of our hearts are anything but attractive. And yet Jesus is clear: “you are of more value than many sparrows.” God’s knowledge of us is the sort of knowledge that a parent or lover seeks, the knowledge that seeks to know every last detail out of delight for the other.
 
As you go about your day, ponder the fact that God knows you more fully than you know yourself and values you more highly than you value yourself. He delights in his children!
 
Steven+