God's Omniscient Journal

 

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

—Psalm 139:16

Both of my grandmothers kept diaries. My mom also kept a diary. I keep one, as well, but I call mine a journal. I find the styles and the myriad of ways that people write down what has happened in their lives quite interesting.

My one grandmother used a pencil to write in tiny bank books. Usually, she merely wrote just one line a day:

“M and G came from Cleveland today.”

She included no details. Just the facts. It was as if she had taken lessons from the character, like Jack Webb, on the TV show “Dragnet.”

My mom’s diaries had similar entries. But with each entry, she always recorded the weather, like any good farm wife of her day.

Each day, my other grandmother wrote many paragraphs of newsy information about the family and the neighbors. She wrote using the most beautiful penmanship with a lovely script handwriting.

None of these women forerunners of mine ever wrote about their feelings. They also never wrote about the spiritual lessons they’d learned, or anything deeply personal.

My own journal writing has changed over the years. At first, my journals carried only Scripture passages and spiritual lessons that I had learned. Now, my journal entries are a combination of those spiritual meditations, my feelings about them, a running day-to-day recording of activities, and once in a while, even comments about the weather.

All this, by way of introduction, to say that God keeps a journal on us, too. God’s journal about us in an “omniscient journal.” Studying the nature of God, at least to the extent that He has revealed His nature to us in the pages of His written Word, we learn that God has written odd and magnificent things in His journal about our days before they have taken place. No human that I know has such an ability.

Yes, we do make plans. But, as the Scripture tells us in Proverbs 19:21:

Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.

Even more than having written the activities of each day ahead of time, God has written our feelings about Him, our feelings about life, and our feelings about those things He has brought about to bring us closer to Him. He records our trials, our joys, our thoughts, our dreams, and our physical ailments. He knows more about us before our actual days happen than we know about ourselves after those days happen.

Can you record in advance how God brought about that meeting with someone who needed your word of encouragement? Can you record in advance the blessing you gave to someone whom you never saw again? Of course not. I repeat: God knows more about us before our actual days take place than we know about ourselves afterwards.

What does this fact cause us to do? First of all, I believe that it should cause us to joyfully worship Him, acknowledging His power, love, and omniscience. Like the Samaritan woman at the well, who exclaimed in John 4:29:

“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”

Then, knowing what we now understand about God’s knowledge of us, we should find this fact comforting, as we look at days before they occur and wonder what will ever happen to us in this situation, or in that one. God already knows what will happen, how He will help get us through that situation, and the reasons He has for allowing everything to occur the way that they do.

As we continue to move through each day in our lives, may the wonderful knowledge of God’s omniscience cause us to trust His awesome love and power. Knowing that God sees what will happen to us before it even occurs should give us a sense of peace that passes all understanding.