Known

And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.  God saw the people of Israel — and God knew.  Exodus.  2:24, 25

This passage from the Exodus story really touched me this week.  As slaves in Egypt, the Israelites were a people familiar with grief and many sorrows.  Daily suffering was part & parcel of life, and as far into the future as they could imagine.  But it was in the midst of their slavery that God was fulfilling his promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to make them a great nation.  Though their oppression was evil and caused great suffering, their slavery was not beyond God’s knowledge and control.  In fact, he had foretold this to Abraham (Gen. 15:13).

Who is this God who makes such impressive promises, then seemingly stands back and watches his people suffer so unjustly?  Isn’t that slightly apathetic?  Indifferent?  Cold?

No.  The God of the Bible is a compassionate God, deeply angered by injustice, familiar with suffering and sympathetically grieving with me in my pain:

• The Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces . (Is. 25:8)
• But the Lord sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice. (Ps. 9:7)
• He loves justice. (Ps. 11:7)
• For He has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; He has not hidden His face from him but has listened to his cry for help. (Ps. 22:24)
• As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. (Ps. 103:13)
• Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you, He rises to show you compassion.  For the Lord is a God of justice, Blessed are all who wait for Him! (Is. 30:18)
• …and God knew.  (Ex. 20:25)

This word for know in the Hebrew means “a warm, affectionate, sympathetic knowing.”  For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize in our weaknesses, but one in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Heb. 4:12).  God became a man who was despised and rejected by other men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. (Is. 53:3)

My God knows my personal sorrows, my personal grief, my personal suffering in the evil slavery, as it were, of cancer.  He knows and He cares.  And He will fulfill His promises to me through it.  And though I’m just a tiny little weave in the fabric of His grand story, I am there, and just like the Israelites story, my grief will be redeemed.  Because it’s not all for nothing.  My God knows.  And sweeter yet, He makes Himself known to me.     

…and they believed.  And when they heard that their Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshipped.  Ex. 4:21