Episode 307: I’m Talkin. . .Omniscient

I’m Talkin’, episode 307, for March 3rd, 2024.

This is Joel from the I’m Talkin’ microcast, where I share my thoughts on a topic that has piqued my interest this past week.

This week we’re talking omniscient.

If omniscient isn’t a church word, then I don’t know what is, because that’s a word that we only use at church.

It’s a good word.

It’s a word that could definitely be used outside of church.

What does it mean?

Well, it means all-knowing.

You can think about people that you’re like, that person is just a know-it-all, but you never can say that in their presence because that’s rude, and it makes you look bad.

What if you said, that person is so omniscient, no one knows what you’re talking about?

Okay, a little bit of humor to start.

But all-knowing has some challenges, but only a God who is omniscient is worthy of serving.

If you follow any God who is surprised by anything that happens, if you want to follow a God who is shocked by the choices people make, by the condition of the world, by the rulers who do silly things, then you are following the wrong God.

Only a God who is all-knowing, who is omniscient, is worthy of our praise and our loyalty and our devotion.

And therein lies the challenge for those of us who call ourselves Christians.

Our challenge is not so much necessarily that we don’t believe that God is omniscient.

That is one of his characteristics and is definitely who God is.

The challenge comes in how we balance his omniscience with the rest of what happens in our lives.

How do we balance the all-knowing nature of God the Father with things like free will, with love, with chance, with circumstance?

So I’ll cover that in a little bit in the next few minutes.

So the challenge is if God already knows what we’re going to do, if God already knows our lifespan, if God already knows our end, if God already knows what that person is going to say to me, what that person is going to do to me, what’s going to happen to my car, what’s going to happen to my house, how do we live with that recognition?

And it’s a struggle for some.

If we have free will, but God already knows what we’re going to do, then is that free will or is it just going to happen anyway?

It’s like God has a plan and it doesn’t change from that, so how does what we do make any difference in the world?

How does our life make any difference?

If God is all-knowing and we are called to witness, what is the point?

Because God already knows that that person’s going to or not going to become a Christian.

And what about love or life or death?

And there are so many more things that you could think of that an all-knowing God brings up short against us knowing things.

And I think that is where we stumble.

Just because God is omniscient, it doesn’t mean that I am or that you are.

The fact is, we know very little.

God’s ways are higher than our ways, the Bible says.

His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

And balancing what we do on a daily basis with God knowing what’s going to happen is a stumbling block that needs to be sawn down.

It needs to be shaved and cut over, burned, whatever you have to do to a stumbling block.

Break it with a sledgehammer.

Because we do not know.

So therein lies our choice.

It’s like you’re watching your child getting ready to put their hand on a hot burner.

You know what’s going to happen.

You wish that you could stop it.

You’re not surprised by what happened.

And you know that your child will learn that that’s not the thing to do again.

That may not be the best example, but it is one that I came up with kind of off the top of my head.

But the reality is, we don’t know that God has chosen us to share his message with that person that allows that person to become a Christian.

We don’t know that our love for another is what makes them feel secure and able to function well in a life in their future.

We don’t know that our death, though known by God, unknown by us, is going to be the point where someone says, I need Jesus in my life.

God uses the frailty of the unknown in us as simple human beings to carry out his omniscient plan, to carry out his all-knowing structure for the world.

When we make a mistake, does that mean God’s plan changes?

No, I don’t think it changes.

I think there’s an end and a beginning.

I think people are moving in a given direction, but our choices matter.

We hurt people.

We hurt ourselves.

We do silly things.

I might even use the word stupid, although I’m not allowed to use that with my grandchildren.

They’re not allowed to use that around me, but it matters what we do.

It doesn’t matter that God knows that we were going to do that thing.

It doesn’t matter that God knows we were going to do good or that God knows we were going to do bad, because the person we interact with, our own nature, and how we deal with life is unknown to us, and we have to let that go.

We have to get over the fact that we serve the only God worthy of serving because he is omniscient, and because we aren’t, it makes him all the more worthy of our love and adoration.

And then we live a life trying to please him knowing that he knows our heart, knowing that he knows our motives, and knowing that he knows we will fail, and yet he loves us anyway.

The only way we want a God is if he is omniscient.

Until next week, this is Joel from the I’m Talking Microcast.