OMNISCIENT!

I had just gotten off the phone with her. The cold weather, I had just told her, was positively affecting my research: it was forcing me to work and work and work, since I had nowhere to go and nothing else to do. So she knew I was at my computer pretty much all day, reading, writing, ….

And I had just disconnected from her, when Amy called right back. “Hey, how do I get to 777 N. Central Expressway? I’m lost!” she declared. She was on her cell phone, calling from her car.

777 N. Central Expressway? Never seen it. Never been there. Don’t know what it is. Don’t know where it is. Probably somewhere along N. Central Expressway, was my perspicacious and profound pronouncement! In North Dallas, I added, for emphasis, just in case.

Compounding this problem of my abysmal geographical ignorance was the fact that I was 4,500 miles away from this dear lady! There she was, on the labyrinthine layers of asphalt in North Dallas, clueless and disoriented in her Honda Civic, with only a cell phone for company. Here I was, all wrapped in swaddling clothes by a blazing fire, and drinking hot tea, while reading philosophical hermeneutics and, between spoonfuls of peanut butter, jotting idle—but nonetheless profound!—thoughts on my laptop, in my flat in Aberdeen.

But Amy knew one thing—I was by my computer. And I had broadband internet access.

maps.google.com to the rescue!

Instantly, I had pinpointed her location and her destination. I knew where she was and I knew where she was headed. “OK, you’re lost!” (I guess I am prone to making profound remarks!) “Make a U-turn at Arapaho, and head south now.” She complied, informing me of her progress. “Alright, now pass the light at Beltline, and make another U-turn at the next light—Spring Valley—and head back north again.”

It sounded, I admit, suspiciously like I was leading her around in circles—“two U-turns,” “head south,” then “head north”! But to her credit, she dutifully followed my instructions.

“Now 777 N. Central Expressway should be the … let me see … 1 … 2 … 3 … 4 … yes, the fifth building on your right, just off the access road.” I could even see that venerable concrete hulk—“777 N. Central Expwy”—on the satellite image on Google!

Amy made it!

Here I was, thousands of miles away, a whole ocean away, several time-zones away, directing someone to a precise location on another continent. In real-time, live! Technology!!

But you know what? There is One who doesn’t use Google to know where you are, or where I am. I strongly doubt if He uses a laptop. He’s certainly not connected to the internet—no dialup, DSL, cable, or fiber-optic! And He doesn’t keep track of His creation with GPS either. Oh, no!

But He does deal with a lot of lost people, though. The marvelous thing is, He knows how to get us discombobulated folks back on track.

There are times, I’ll confess, when I wonder if He knows what He is doing. But our omniscient God sees! He knows! He cares! And being God, He knows what He is doing. Inscrutable, He might be. But unerring, He defintely is. He knows what He's doing.

Thou dost know when I sit down and when I rise up;
Thou dost understand my thought from afar.
Thou dost scrutinize my path and my lying down,
And art intimately acquainted with all my ways.
If I take the wings of the dawn,
If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
Even there Thy hand will lead me,
And Thy right hand will lay hold of me.
How precious also are Thy thoughts to me, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
If I should count them,
They would outnumber the sand.
When I awake, I am still with Thee.

Psalm 139:2–3; 9–10; 17–18 (NASB)

What a relief to know there is Someone who sees and knows and cares!
We can trust Him for His sovereign direction and control of all things. What a blessed relief!

What a great God!