Being Known

¹ You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

Psalm 139:1-18 (NIV)

For eleven seasons from 1982 until 1993, the familiar theme song from the sitcom Cheers played in many homes where the television was tuned to NBC. This theme song captured the desire of almost every human, “Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name.” Humans are created with a desire to be known. The sitcom demonstrated this desire. We became close to the characters as they became close to one another. As they experienced challenges, heartbreaks, triumphs and the ebb and flow of relationships, we experienced along with them because we could easily relate. Sam, Coach, Diane, Cliff, Norm, Carla, Lilith, Frazier, Woody and Rebecca each had a part of our life experience in them. We laughed and cried with them because we felt they knew us as much as we knew them.

The psalmist writes about being known in Psalm 139. The words recall for us the promise that God fully knows each and every one of us. God knows where we are and what we are doing at all times. We were known by the Lord even before being given life. Nothing about us is ever hidden from our Creator. We are completely known.

The idea of being so completely and intimately known can be comforting and unnerving at the same time. The comfort comes from a deep need being met. The unnerving aspect is that not only our good parts but our flawed and troublesome parts are fully exposed. There is no place or means of being hidden from God. Yet even while this is true, we are still loved fully by the Lord. The Almighty knows as by name and the welcome never ends. “(God) is always glad you came.”