There it is. In the middle of a narrative that I'd written off as familiar and inconsequential, the story of the Hebrew people as slaves in Egypt, there's this:
During those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel-- and God knew.
[ Did you skim over that, like I did the first time? Don't. Go back, read it. Soak in those words.]
God saw the people of Israel-- and God knew.
God knew.
God knows.
He knows what your morning has already been like; He knows the hurt and the secrets that no one else sees.
He knows the fears and the disappointments; He knows the fragile dreams and the hopes.
He knows how your flesh is weak and how you feel so completely broken and inadequate (& worthless, even?).
God knows.
And this changes everything this week. This makes me slow down, pause, get some perspective: God knows. He has known from the beginning. He hears, he remembers his promises, he sees. Whatever it is, however impossibly big or inconsequentially small, he knows.
And something else: God doesn't just know because he's this nebulous power looking down from a thousand feet above, able to see and know everything that's going on. He knows because he knows you intimately. (Like that best friend that can tell how you're feeling with just a look, but then much deeper.) He knows, and he cares for you. This is the One who created you, the one who delights in you (Psalm 18:19). He knows who you are in Christ. He is a refuge, the place of deepest comfort that only comes when you are fully known, and yet fully loved.
God knew the suffering of the Israelites in their slavery, he heard them when they cried out for rescue.
God knows the emotions and the confusion and the uncertainty and the joy going through you, he hears you when you cry out for rest and rescue and help. You are not ever alone, not ever forsaken.
God knows.
