Known and Loved
Romans 8:34 · Romans 12:2 (NIV)
Watch one cooking video and three more appear. Look at a shirt online, and the matching pants show up the next day.
The Pour Over, a Christian news digest, explained this morning how that happens. Social media platforms use what is called the algorithm, a set of rules that decides what shows up in each person's feed. It learns from your comments, your shares, your views, and "how long you linger on something." The more it learns, the better it guesses. The writers put it this way: it "knows you better than your mama."
This week a court in New Mexico ruled on what one company had promised about people's data. The Associated Press reported that state District Judge Francis J. Mathew ordered Meta, the company that owns Facebook, to pay the state 25 billion dollars. In September, a jury had found that Meta misled users about how it handled their personal data. The case grew out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, when a political consulting firm used Facebook data for targeted ads. The judge wrote, "Facebook promised users that they (the users) controlled their data. This was false."
Meta disagrees. Its chief legal officer, C.J. Mahoney, said the lawsuit seeks "to impose a tax on speech" and added, "We are confident we will prevail on appeal." The appeal could take years.
Whatever the courts decide, the story raises an old question. What does it mean to be known?
David, the shepherd who became king of Israel, wrote about being known by GOD. "You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar" (Psalm 139:1-2). "You are familiar with all my ways" (Psalm 139:3).
An algorithm studies a person to predict the next click. GOD knows a person all the way through, and the psalm closes with an invitation. "Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts" (Psalm 139:23). David asks to be known.
The apostle Paul, whose letters fill much of the New Testament, wrote about being shaped by whatever surrounds us. "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2). A feed learns our patterns and hands them back to us. Paul points to a different shaping, one that comes from GOD.
Sometimes the patterns that hold us show up at night. Psalm 77, credited to Asaph, one of the worship leaders of ancient Israel, describes a night without sleep. "You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak" (Psalm 77:4). His thoughts circled. "Has God forgotten to be merciful?" (Psalm 77:9). Then he turned toward what GOD had done. "I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago" (Psalm 77:11).
By the end of the psalm, he describes GOD leading HIS people through deep waters, "though your footprints were not seen. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron" (Psalm 77:19-20).
GOD does not track us the way a feed does. HIS footprints are often unseen, and HE still leads.
A bishop named Irenaeus led the church in Lyon, in what is now France, around AD 180. In Against Heresies IV.2.5, he drew on Isaiah 5:12 to warn against becoming so absorbed in pleasure that we forget GOD and fail to consider HIS works. Asaph did the opposite on his sleepless night. "I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds" (Psalm 77:12).
Being fully known can feel frightening. Anyone who has done wrong may fear what a complete record would show. Paul answers that fear. "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). He gives the reason in the next verse: "through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2). Later in the same chapter he asks, "Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us" (Romans 8:34).
To intercede means to speak up for someone. The One who knows everything about us is the One speaking up for us.
A company may know what we linger over. GOD knows what weighs on us at night, and for those who are in Christ, HE does not hold the record against us.
It leaves me thinking about how much of my attention I hand over each day without asking who is shaping it.
I am not here to prove myself. I am here to make HIM visible.
🙏 To the one who feels watched and measured, GOD knows you and loves you.
🙏 To the one lying awake with circling thoughts, HE leads even when HIS footprints are not seen.
🙏 To the one afraid of what a complete record would show, there is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus.
🙏 To the one who needs someone to speak up for you, Christ is interceding for you right now.
Grace and Peace.