Our News Isn’t News to God
On a chilly, early morning hike with our grandchildren, we searched for birds as part of the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania bird count. We started out with a set of binoculars for each person, but I ended up carrying three of the five sets.
Because it was an overcast day, the birds were not active and hard to find. After forty-five minutes, someone spotted and pointed up in a tree to a chickadee. I grabbed one of the grandkids’ binoculars.
In my haste, I had placed the child-sized binoculars backwards up to my eyes which made everything appear to be twice as far away as they actually were. The bare oak tree grew another twenty feet, and that chickadee was impossible to spot. I quickly reversed the binoculars but not before our nine-year-old grandson had observed my mistake.
Knowing how to make me laugh, he placed his binoculars backwards up to his eyes, looked up to the skies and said, “Oooh! I’m grandma and I only see teeny birds waaaaay up in the sky! Why are the trees so tall? Oh my! This is terrible!” And yes, I laughed... very hard.
Later, when I thought about that humorous incident, I thought about the times that I can just as easily reverse my understanding of the distance that God is from us here on Earth. When does this happen? Whenever I look through a worldly lens at the news on my phone, on the Internet, in print, on TV, or when someone shares bad news with me.
There have been many times in the past months when I have heard negative news and, in my mind, have momentarily panicked, thinking today’s news is also news to God, and that: “He is way up in the sky! This is terrible!” In other words, my ‘faith lens’ is distorted and I have a hard time focusing on the fact that God is near, and our news is not news to Him.
As I write this, I know that it sounds ridiculous, but just as quickly as I reversed those binoculars, my mind can reverse the Truth which is that our God is Omniscient and Omnipresent.
He already knows our “news” and is waiting for us to turn to Him in prayer.
There are several examples of this in the Bible.
In Matthew 16, the Pharisees and Sadducees wanted Jesus to show them signs from heaven to prove that He is the Messiah; in other words, they pictured God to be a faraway God who could not possibly be with them.
In Mark 8, when Jesus taught His Disciples about the suffering that He would endure, Peter attempted to explain to Jesus what he, Peter, thought should happen. We do the same when we pray to our Father explaining what we think He should understand and do about a situation.
In John 20 and 21, Jesus appeared to Mary and to the Disciples three more times making it clear to those whom He loves that He is alive and near to them as well as to us today through the presence of the Holy Spirit.
In Luke 24, on the road to Emmaus, after Jesus was resurrected, He joined two men whose eyes were opened when He broke bread with them after they had spent time with Him.
I know that I must continually go to the Word, spend time with Jesus in prayer, and with others in biblical community, in order to see through the ‘lens’ of the Gospel Truth.
During this Lenten season, my hope is that you find God is closer than you think! And we can rest in the knowledge that our Lord is omniscient and omnipresent. Turn to Him in prayer.
Lord, You are omniscient.
You know what will happen tomorrow and the day after that.
You see eternity and You know how all these things fit into Your plans!
I can only see today and only feel the pain of this moment.
I have no concept of eternity except to know you are eternal.
Lord, You know what You are doing with me - I do not!
I must trust Your judgement and Your all-knowing wisdom to show me what to do every moment of each day.
If I thought You did not know as I do not know, I would really have reason for fear and despair.
- David Jeremiah from Prayers for Today by Kurt Bjorklund (Day 176)
