Make Me Know

We don’t like admitting that we’re ignorant. The word ignorant, while laced with negative connotations simply means without knowledge. We know much less than we think we do. Google has deceived us. Siri has led us astray. Alexa has convinced us that all knowledge can be found with a simple command.

Job (13:23) in the midst of his own woes and bad advice from would-be friends prayed a legitimate prayer to God: Make me know my transgression and my sin. We are easily self-deceived, easily deluded into thinking that what we are doing is ok. We trick ourselves into thinking that “prayer requests” aren’t really gossip and that the “second look” really isn’t lust.

Unless God reveals the gravity of our sin, we will not know the weight of the cross on Jesus’ back.

In Psalm 25:4 David prays, “Make me to know your ways O Lord; teach me your paths.” God told Isaiah, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9, ESV) If we, without realizing it, have reduced God to a Google search or an Alexa command, we have diminished his omniscience (his knowledge of all) and we lean on our own understanding without even realizing it.

You will never know your way if you do not know God’s ways.

In Psalm 34, we hear David pray again: “Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.” (vs. 8, ESV) The way you should go will never be outside the boundaries of God’s ways. If you want to know your way you must know His ways first. God is concerned with the details of your life. His mind can comprehend billions of people going down trillions of roads. If he feeds the birds, then whatever you’re facing today is of unspeakable importance to him.

Your way matters to God more than you will ever know.

In Psalm 39 David prays a most unusual prayer: “O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! (vs. 4, ESV) The full psalm reveals that David has sinned and God has disciplined him. We aren’t privy to what the sin is–we only know that David is suffering long and hard for it. It appears that God has “cut him down to size.” David realizes he will not live forever, that he has a limited time and space on the earth.

You can no more measure your days than a yardstick can measure the Atlantic Ocean.

Whatever you are facing today, an uncertain diagnosis, unconfessed sin, the unknown of your job situation–pray this prayer: make me to know. If you doubt God’s desire to reveal Himself, consider that He sent his one and only Son, wrapped in human flesh, exposed so you would be covered, ruined so you would be restored, rejected so you would be accepted. Jesus was naked so you would be clothed, hungry so you would be fed, homeless so you would have shelter.

Lord, make me know.