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There is nothing hidden from God or unknown to God. I have tried to reflect upon this at times when grappling with theological issues or concepts the Bible sets forth. I think maybe if I study harder or read these people who understood it better, maybe I'll understand. But the thought often comes to me, "God knows this and understands it perfectly." The fact that God is omniscient gives me great confidence and comfort when I am confounded.

There was a godly 19th century minister named Robert Murray M'Cheyne who said that when you go to pray, you should always pray as if Jesus was standing right next to you. Because He is. He is always right there. There was once a dying man who was an atheist and his little grandchild came to visit him. This little girl, who could barely read, loved the Lord and feared God. The grandfather had a sign above His bed that said "God is Nowhere" and he wanted to convince the little girl that there was no God. He pointed to the sign and said, "Can you read that sign above my head?" The little girl looked up and slowly read aloud, "God is now here." When the man heard that, the Holy Spirit used it to convert him in that moment. If you really understood that God is now here, your whole life would change. Once you realize that God is everywhere and your life changes, God's omnipresence becomes very precious to you because you never have to go anywhere alone.

We can say to our children "God is so big that He is beyond anybody's brain. We cannot really figure Him out, but He has explained things to us in a way that we can live by. He gives us words like 'faithful' that help us to have some idea of what He is like." The word faithful is a wonderful word! In the use of this word in the Old Testament days, it was used of steady hands. If you think about it, that really helps us understand. God is a person who has steady hands. For example, if you have something really important and you want to trust someone with it who will not drop it, you give it to the person with steady hands. You can trust them with things that are important. People can be that way a little bit, but God is that way perfectly. He is perfectly faithful.

Being self-sufficient means He has no need within Himself that has to be met outside of Himself. He is independent of His creation. What does that mean for me personally? It instills confidence. When I look in the mirror of God's word, I know that I need saving. If I have to help God save me, I am in trouble because I know I can contribute nothing to my salvation but sin.

If a young child asked me, "What does it mean that God is omnipotent?" I would start off by saying that God can do anything that God desires. But we cannot leave it there because the Bible teaches that there are some things that God cannot do. For instance, God cannot lie. Now we have to rework our definition.

First, explain what it means to know something. "Do you know that 1 + 1 equals 2? You know some math! Do you know that the big thing in the yard with green on it is a tree? You know something! But there are a lot of things that you do not know. Isn't that true? "In fact, you do not know how much you do not know. Can you imagine if there was Someone who knows everything....? That is what omniscience means. There is nothing that God does not know. He knows your heart. He knows everything about you. He knows your sin and your desire. He knows what you pray even when you do not talk out loud. "If you are not saved, that is kind of scary because God knows who you are. You need to fly to Jesus as an 8-year-old. You cannot hide anything from God."

So much of our lives we face the lamentations of Jeremiah and see the break down the family and the church. We meet our own personal sins and challenges of our own lives. We need to always end these thoughts and considerations with Lamentations 3:23 "They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness." It is a good thing for a man to patiently wait for the salvation of the Lord. Our position is always to count on the faithfulness of God. This especially when dealing with our difficulty with our children. We must believe in the promises of God.

There are things that easily roll off of the tongue because of our contact with religion, Christianity, and church such as when we say that God is a "God of glory" or He is "glorious" or "give glory to God." I grew up in a Christian home so those words do not shock me. But, if we go back and consider what glory really means, it should pack a punch. If we say that God is a "God of glory" or "glorious", there are two great categories that we can use to describe that: the Old Testament Hebrew word and the New Testament Greek word. While they are connected they can also give us different flavors. The Hebrew word for "glory" means weight or weightiness. In the ancient world weight was connected with value. Nowadays you might have a conversation with someone and say, "That was kind of a heavy conversation." There are topics that we think of as "heavy" topics. God is weighty. He has substance and worth. Think of it like a mountain. If you are traveling and come to a mountain range, it is not something that you can easily push aside and ignore. It changes all of your plans. When we think of God, we may think of Him as a weightless being who can be pushed aside when He does not fit the way we want to live. But in reality God is infinitely weighty. He is glorious. The Greek word means reputation or honor or the expression of an inward reality. Think of the sun in the sky and the rays that come from it. The rays would be the "glory" or "expression" of the sun's energy or light. Christ is the radiance of God's glory! (Hebrews 1:3)

When we are trying to explain this to a child we have to understand that we would have difficulty explaining this to a seminary student going for his PhD. All we need is, not to get into the depths of why, but just the fact that it is. The Father, who loves His Son more than all the world, more than countless worlds, loved His people so much that He sent His only Son. Sometimes when I am in a debate I follow a rule: I am never going to open a can I cannot close. At this moment, children do not need to go in-depth into the mysteries of God's works and God's grace that even the greatest theologians have to admit is beyond them. What we must do with a child is to simply proclaim what is.

We can hardly talk about it since all of our language is time-bound! This truth about God expands our thinking about Him. It takes our breath away if we think about it for just a moment. There is no creature like God. God is in a category by Himself. Everything outside of God comes from God, is by God, and is for God. The infinity of God stretches our thinking and causes us to bow our heads in recognition that we cannot comprehend Him. This Being, who has caused all things to exist and created us and revealed Himself through His Son Jesus Christ, is worthy of all of our worship for all of our life.

Salvation is often understood in terms of a covenant of grace that God has for a people. He enters into a covenant as the Maker and Keeper. But this covenant of grace is based on another covenant that God the Father made with God the Son. They entered into covenant to save a people.

God is infinite. He is not bound by anything. We are bound by so many things such as time, geography, and ability. God is not bound by any of these things! I typically think of God's infiniteness in terms of the three "omnis" that describe God. He is not bound by geography and He is everywhere at the same time. There is no limit to His knowledge. There is nothing that can be known that He does not know. There is no limit to His power. There is nothing that He wants to do that He cannot do. He always has the power.