Our All-Knowing God

God has invited us to be captivated by the greatness of His character and what we believe about God has the greatest potential to shape our suffering. Although we will never be able to thoroughly grasp the fullness of His glory on this side of eternity, He has given us glimpses of His glory in the revelation of His Word. In this series, we will dive into ten attributes of God and discover what hope they offer us in our sorrow and how knowing and believing these truths about who God is can provide great comfort in the midst of grief.

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“I just need to know why her fever isn’t going away.”
“I want to know the test results now.”
“I really need to know that my baby is healthy.”

I can’t count the amount of times these words and others like them have fallen from my lips. More recently, I’ve been heard saying “I just need to know if I’m going to get Covid.” As someone who has suffered from health anxiety for as long as I can remember, losing my baby boy at just a few hours old fed the lie that if I had more knowledge, perhaps I could’ve have done something to save him.

I’m not the first one to believe the lie that life would be better if I had more knowledge. That was precisely how the serpent tempted Eve in the garden. Genesis 3:4-5 says, “But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’” We know that for Eve, and in turn for all of humanity, more knowledge was not a good thing!

The Bible tells us that we were made to bear God’s image, but not that we are to be like God. As we grow in our walk with the Lord, we should also be growing in our reflection of His love, kindness, and mercy among many other attributes. However, there are attributes of God that theologians refer to as incommunicable, meaning God alone can possess them. God’s omniscience, or the fact that He is all knowing, is one of these attributes. When we try to be like God, as Jen Wilkin says, “designed to reflect His glory, we choose instead to rival it.” When I spend my time and energy trying to know all the things, I am choosing to rival my good and holy God. 

What does the fact that God is all knowing (and that we are not) mean for us as Hope Moms as we grieve?

We can rest easy knowing that God knew every single thing about our baby before they were even a thought in our mind. He knew the number of their days. Not only are they completely known by God, but our babies were also a part of His sovereign plan.  

“For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
My soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
When I was being made in secret,
Intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
In your book were written, every one of them,
The days that were formed for me,
When as yet there was none of them.” 
-Psalm 139:13-16

We can release any guilt we might feel from the lie that we didn’t know enough. We were never meant to know it all. As it says in Isaiah 55, the Lord’s ways are higher than ours.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
Neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth
So are my ways higher than your ways
And my thoughts than your thoughts.”
-Isaiah 55:8-9

We can find comfort in the fact that God incarnate, Jesus, knows our pain. 

“He was despised and rejected by men,
    a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
    He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.

Surely He has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed Him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.

But He was pierced for our transgressions;
    He was crushed for our iniquities;
upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with His wounds we are healed.” 
-Isaiah 55:3-5

I love the way A.W. Tozer describes this in his book The Knowledge of the Holy: “[God’s] only begotten Son, when He walked among us, felt our pains in their naked intensity of anguish. His knowledge of our afflictions and adversities is more than theoretic; it is personal, warm, and compassionate. Whatever may befall us, God knows and cares as no one else can.” 

“He doth give His joy to all:
He becomes an infant small,
He becomes a man of woe,
He doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy Maker is not by:
Think not thou canst weep a tear,
And thy Maker is not near.

O He gives to us His joy,
That our grief He may destroy:
Till our grief is fled and gone
He doth sit by us and moan.”

William Blake’s, On Another’s Sorrow

Looking for the attributes of God as I study Scripture has changed so much for me. It continues to turn my gaze from myself to my Creator. A couple of years ago I had two simple, but powerful words tattooed on my wrist: He is. It serves as a daily reminder to remember in Whom my true hope lies, my all-knowing, all-powerful, always-present God!

“Our comfort lies not in holding all knowledge, but in trusting the One who does.” -Jen Wilkin 

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Kacie lives in Austin, Texas, and is the mommy of three precious daughters on earth and a sweet baby boy in heaven. She loves reading, coffee dates with her husband, Jonathan, and traveling with her family. She is passionate about helping women grow in biblical literacy and theology and is the cohost of the Adorned Podcast. She also blogs at www.kaciehunt.com.

We would be honored to share your story as a Hope Mom on our blog. On Saturdays we feature Hope Moms’ stories in order to showcase God’s faithfulness even in the midst of such deep sorrow. If you would like to have your story shared on our blog for this purpose, learn more and submit here.

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