“God already knows every deep thing within us—even those things too deep for our own conscious minds to retrieve—yet he searches us anyway. His Spirit seeks though he knows what he will find. He is neither bored nor uninterested. His omniscience does not distract from his discovery.” –Beth Moore, Align:  31 Days of Prayer, Day 31 (emphasis mine)

Have you ever considered that God has moments of awe about you?

Yes, God is omniscient which means he knows everything. Yet he searches us anyway…and is awed.

Psalm 139 tells us, v. 23, Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

Everything prior to that verse in Psalm 139 is God being amazed about you. It’s about his continual presence with you and such things as wonderfully complex, marvelous, woven together…in the dark. This matches that wonderful truth about how even in the darkness God is there. This continues to comfort me.

This led to a wonderful conversation at my church. (This is what we do as our expression of church.) Someone bravely asked, “Is God only in awe of us when we are Christians, or is he in awe of us because we are made in his image? Is God in awe of the 1 sheep who ran away as well as the other 99?”

There was some conversation added to this and then I said,

“I think God is awed by the one sheep which is why he pursues with love and grace. Not shame. Awe doesn’t have space for shame.”

Awe doesn’t have space for shame.

God does not use shame to pursue us.

God is not insecure that he needs to use shame to “power over” us to call us back.

You may think God does use shame because you struggle with shame. You feel responsible in your ruminating of all of the bad things you’ve done as well as your bad decisions. Shame feels responsible.

Or you have a view of a judgey God who uses shame to keep you in line.

Meanwhile, God never uses shame to pursue us. You can’t find it in the Bible. Read more: God does not use shame to pursue us.

Perhaps there is even some awe…about you.

What if God searching you is not God looking for evidence against you, but God delighting in what he already knows about you? What if God is conspiring for your good? Psalm 139 moves from God knowing everything about you to God marveling at what he has made. We are wonderfully complex.

That sounds less like a God standing over us with a clipboard looking for reasons to be disappointed and more like a God who cannot stop looking at us.

Awe says, “Look at you.” “Look at what you have survived.” “Look at the way you love.” “Look at the way you keep becoming.” “Look at the beautiful complexity of who you are.”

Maybe this is why awe doesn’t have space for shame.

Shame makes us hide.

Awe makes us stop and look.

Shame says, “There is something wrong with you.”

Awe says, “There is something here worth seeing.”

Shame says, “There is something wrong with you.”

Awe says, “There is something here worth seeing.”

You are worth seeing.

And perhaps when God looks at you, he sees both what needs to change and what is already beautiful. As we say often at my church, “God loves you as you are but loves you too much to let you stay that way.”

Psalm 139 ends with this verse, v. 24 – Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

Do you see God using shame to point out what is wrong with you? Or do you now see the loving pursuit? And now see God leading you (which means to be near you) on a better path? Psalm 40:2b says, He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. God has to be near to set our feet on solid ground again and to steady us (this I know personally).

I believe the nearer God gets to you, the more awe he feels towards you.