November 12th

Numbers 1:1-2:9, Luke 1:26-38, Psalm 33:12-22

Across the passages today there is the story of a God who knows us intimately at a very personal level.

The opening chapter of Numbers is about God and Moses starting to build the army and God saying the people who are to take the lead in this task. Have you noticed though how it is God who names the people. He doesn’t say to Moses “Go and get the head of each family, I can’t quite remember their names, but they’ll help you”. God knows their names and he knows them personally. He can tell Moses exactly who he wants to take on this particular task.

Later on, God sent his Angel out to talk to a young girl. He knew which girl he wanted Gabriel to talk to and he knew where she was. Just as God had chosen Elizabeth, he also chose Mary, and he knew that they were cousins. You could quite imagine a surprised “well would you believe it, my cousin Elizabeth is pregnant and an angel came to see her hubby, what are the chances of that!” but there is none of that, this is part of God’s much bigger plan.

We have already pondered the fact that we are made by God and v15 of the psalm talks about the way that God has formed out hearts, but take a look at the verses before:

¹³ From heaven the LORD looks down
   and sees all mankind;
¹⁴ from his dwelling place he watches
   all who live on earth—

So this is a God who looks from heaven, who we could imagine is so far away in heaven, and yet he looks down and he sees all 6,697,254,040 of us as individuals. He knows our needs and desires, our pain and sorrows. Sometimes we might feel as though we are going through something alone and yet we need to remember that God sees it all and is going through it with us.

As you sit with your bible today, remember that you sit with a God who sees you and knows you. A god who is never far away in all things. The God of Moses, Elizur, Shelumiel and the others. the God of Mary and Elizabeth and the God of you and me.