“Thou knowest, not alone as God, all knowing;
As man, our mortal weakness thou hast proved;
On earth, with purest sympathies o’erflowing,
O Saviour, thou hast wept and thou hast loved;
And love and sorrow still to thee may come
And find a hiding-place, a rest, a home.”
To many people the thought of Christ’s perfect knowledge of them is an unwelcome one. It awes them and troubles them. But if we are living as we should live, if we are true to our purpose and sincere in our striving, the consciousness that Christ knows all about us should give us great comfort.
Too often this thought of the divine omniscience is presented as an element of terror. Children are told that God sees them; and the fact is presented to them as one which should inspire dread, and they are made to fear God’s eye. The words “Thou God seest me” are quoted and commented upon as if it had been in stern aspect that the Lord appeared to Hagar. Really, however, it was a friendly revealing that these words were first used. Under God’s all-seeing eye was a shelter of love for the poor woman. So it is always that God looks down upon his children; his look is ever kindly. He is our friend, not our enemy; and his feeling toward us is very gracious and loving. The thought of his perfect knowledge of us should never be an oppressive one; and it will not be so if we understand even a little of his yearning interest in us, and if we have even a faint conception of his infinite patience.
True, our life is full of failures and blemishes. We mean to be loyal to Christ, but the world is hard, and we are very weak. At the best, we get only little fragments of the beauty of Christ into our character. We are Christ-like only in dim, blurred resemblances in our disposition and conduct. We intend to be gentle and loving; but we mar our days ofttimes with unhappy tempers, querulous bickerings, unseemly complaints, and selfish strivings.
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