What Does It Mean that God Knows Me?

The “Father of American Psychology,” William James, said, “The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.”

The moment you start writing your own life story, everything starts to go off the rails. You'll grow anxious, depressed, and frustrated. Life will feel overwhelming, and you'll settle for distractions that keep you focused on the things that don’t matter.

But when you follow in the footsteps of Jesus and recognize you can do nothing of lasting value on your own, this changes your entire framework of reality. When you recognize God as the author of your story, this frees you from the weight of creating your own narrative. When you are in relationship with God, you are enough because he is enough.

Thinking like the Ecclesiastes 11 merchant, only as you invest in this relationship with God will you understand how he wants you to treat others. I write this from personal experience. Why is a relationship with God so meaningful to me?

Because I Discovered a God Who Knows Me

This discovery journey started when I was a kid in my parents' backyard, a 60 X 40-foot barn in northern Canada. As an aspiring hockey player, I’d strap on my rollerblades and skate for hours, taking shots at empty nets.

There, amid the thunk of steady slap shots and roller wheels grinding against concrete, I built the foundation of my relationship with God. Away from the distractions of the world, I learned what it meant to hear God's voice. No, it wasn’t some audible sound, but I sensed this growing internal awareness that God loved me, knew me, and cared about who I was and how I lived.

Since those childhood moments, I’ve had times, especially during hard seasons of my life, when the presence of God was undeniable. And I've had many quieter moments (I had one yesterday) where God reassures me of his love and care.

Today, if people ask me why I am a Christian, I could offer quite a few responses. I could go all technical and say I believe in God because of the teleological argument and the incredible design of this universe. After all, doesn’t design point to a designer?

Or I could highlight the cosmological argument and how the order in the cosmos points to Christ. But then I’d just sound smarter than I am. If you were keen on a longer conversation, we could discuss the ontological argument, but it’s too confusing for me to understand, let alone explain. And then there is the moral argument, one of my favorites, that says there is an innate human need for moral justice.

All of these arguments for God’s existence are useful. But if I were to shoot straight and give you the real reason Ezra Byer is a follower of Jesus, I would point you to John 4 and the story of Jesus and a woman from Samaria. If you’re unfamiliar with this narrative, it’s worth noting there were three major reasons this encounter should have never taken place.

The first was because of this woman’s cultural background. Jewish people hated Samaritans, and few Jews would have made the decision Jesus made to pass through Samaria to meet her.

The second major challenge was gender. In an era where a woman’s testimony would not hold up in court, women were viewed as inferior. Nearly two millenniums before the suffragette movement, women held virtually no societal rights or privileges.

Third was this woman’s moral baggage. This woman was married five times, and while John doesn’t tell us why, it’s safe to assume from the context of this story that people of her culture held her at a distance.

Still, despite these societal objections, Jesus went to where she was and changed this woman’s life in the process. After meeting Jesus, she went into the town and said these compelling words, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.”[1]

In other words, I found someone who knows me!

So, What Does This Mean for My Life?

In Western Culture, we have this isolated, privileged mindset that says people are inherently good. We think that if people are just given the right environment to live in, then they will excel and love others as they should. But when it comes to my own story, I know this is false.

I know Ezra pretty well. Left to my own devices, I am selfish, proud, prejudiced, and manipulative. But when I encountered Jesus, I found something neither religion nor culture could offer. I didn’t experience judgment and shame, nor did I receive frivolous tolerance for who I was. Instead, I found someone who told me all that I ever did and still offered me the gift of eternal life.

Since then, I’ve found Jesus to be someone who has been with me in seasons of depression, misunderstanding, hurt, bitterness, shame, and doubt. In Jesus, the great longing of my heart to be known is fulfilled.