God's Sympathetic Knowledge

“The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous” — Ps. i. 6.

Does He not know all things? Why limit thus the range of His omniscience? Is there anything that can be hid from the search of His piercing gaze? Is not the way of the wicked also known to Him? — known so well that He has travelled over the far country to seek and to save that which was lost. Yes; but there is a sense in which He only knows the good. His eyes behold, His eyelids try all that belongs to the eye; but there is a knowledge which belongs not to the eye but to the heart, the knowledge which men call sympathy. Hundreds know me as a man, but only my child knows me as a father. Even so the heavenly Father has a special knowledge of His child. His knowledge is his nearness; it is the attraction of a kindred sympathy, the gravitation of love. He looks

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into the glass of our humanity and He beholds there, in miniature, the brightness of His own glory, the express image of His own person, the Christ that is to be, and when He sees it, He rejoices with an exceeding great joy.

My soul, wilt thou fulfil this joy of thy Father’s heart? He waits to behold in thee the impress of His own likeness. He sits as a refiner of silver till He sees in thee the reflection of His own image, and when He sees His image reflected He knows that the refining is complete. Wilt thou grant Him the joy of that knowledge? Wilt thou let Him behold a Christ in thee — Himself in thee? Wilt thou let Him feel that there is a heart in sympathy with His heart, a life in unison with His life, a will in harmony with His will? Then thou shalt have the joy of all joys — the joy of making glad the heart of God. Communion is dear to the spirit of the heavenly Father; for the spirit of the Father is love, and love seeketh not her own. It cannot rest in aught but the vision of its object; it must speak, and it must be answered again; it must know even as it is known.