The Knowable God

The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world.

Psalm 19:1-4

God has not made himself hard to find. He is not playing a game of hide-and-seek with us. He has built his message into the DNA of the universe he created. Every time we look at his creation, we see evidence of him.

He promises that he is present and knowable. That there is no nook or cranny in the universe where we are hidden from him. That there is no location where he is hidden from us. The Creator of the vast universe wants to be in a personal relationship with each one of us. The psalmist wrote, “I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! . . . I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night—but even in darkness I cannot hide from you” (Psalm 139:7, 11-12).

Think of the heavens. Stars are clustered in galaxies, which average between one hundred billion and one trillion stars each. How many galaxies are there? Astronomers estimate that there are approximately one hundred billion to one trillion galaxies in the universe. If you multiply those two numbers together, there are between ten sextillion and one septillion stars. And God calls each one by name: “Because of [God’s] great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing” (Isaiah 40:26).

Aren’t you more precious to God than any star? Look at the work of his hands, and see his promise that he loves you and makes himself knowable.

I am awed to think that you set so high a value on me. I am never hidden from you, and you are never hidden from me.

God dwells in His creation and is everywhere indivisibly present in all His works. He is transcendent above all His works even while He is immanent within them.

A. W. Tozer(1897–1963), American preacher and author