God Knows Us

Never will I forget a thing you have done
The threat of the prophet Amos sticks out on the page like a sore thumb of indictment, shattering our delusions of anonymity, and our illusions of indecipherability.
There it is: Never will I forget a thing you have done.
It is a palpable reminder of a reality we might otherwise be quite content to put out of our minds, the reality that:
God knows us and we often like to forget that God knows us, but He knows us.
God knows it all.
He knows every sin we have ever committed even the ones we like to horde to ourselves like secret treasure
God knows the fortunes we hide in grudges, old hurts and pains, neglects gone by
God knows the receipts we like to rewrite creating new narratives from our embarrassment, new biographies from our embroilments
God knows every malicious thing we have perpetrated, every slander, meanness, ugly thought
God knows our playground bulliness and our adolescent heartlessness
God knows about our e bombs
God knows what internet sites we like to visit when we think we have hidden them from everyone elsemus
God knows what occupies our minds in the secret hours, deliberate deliberations of hatred, revenge, sourness and sordidness of every species
God knows the musings of our souls, the secret music of resentment, the melodies of envy
God knows, God knows
Never will I forget a thing you have done.
God knows us and we often like to forget that God knows us, but He knows us.
God knows us in every way
He also knows the secret good we do, the random acts of kindness and anonymous acts of sincere concern
He knows the real hurts we have endured as children, as teenagers, as adults
He knows the pains we clutch to our hearts, pains of rejection and being outcasts
He knows the longing we have to love Him, to serve Him, to be close to Him even when we seem so far away
He knows the dreams that lie behind our bravado, the tears that stain the pillows of our wounded souls
He knows our loves and our hates, our tortures and our joys.
And he promises
Never will I forget a thing you have done.
God knows us and we often like to forget that God knows us, but He knows us.
God knows us so well that he has the ability; we might say the providence to turn even our dishonest wealth into treasure for the Kingdom.
Because he knows us, he can make all the disillusionment, all the sin of our lives into a powerhouse of insight into the broken hearts, the distended spirits of our brothers and sisters who cry out for dignity and bread
Because he knows us, he can see our secret longing for acceptance, our desire to be respected and loved even as we reject others in hatred, as we disrespect our neighbors
Because he knows us, he can take the trash of our past, our secret lives, our hidden claws and transform it into a glorious treasure of compassion for others who have labored under the same Sisyphean burdens
Because he knows us, he can transform our misery into ministry, our myopicity into mystery, our self musing into mission
Because he knows us, he can recreate
Because he knows us, he can understand
Because he knows us, he can love
Because he can recreate, we can be instruments of renewal and revival
Because he can understand we can be the vessels of his compassion
Because he loves, we love
We can love
We can be changed
We can be saints
We can be
Never will I forget a thing you have done. It is a threat and a promise for all of us weak willed and strong, burdened and burdening, reachers and graspers, crying out for understanding in the memory of God even as we hear these words spoken again and again: Do this in remembrance of me.
God knows us and we often like to forget that God knows us, but He knows us. Thank God.