A Penny For Your Thoughts

How many times have you heard that phrase? If you had a penny for each time someone said it to you…

This is one phrase Jesus probably never said to His disciples. In John 16, we see that He knew what was going on in their heads and what they were talking to each other about. What He had been saying upset them. Yet, they didn’t want Him to know that and talked amongst themselves than to Him.

It is like Adam and Eve playing Hide-n-Seek with God in the garden. He knew where they were and what they had done before He even asked where they were at.

Take a look at Psalms 139:3b-4 Complete Jewish Bible,

You are so familiar with all my ways
 that before I speak even a word, Adonai,
you know all about it already.

King David knew long before Jesus was born that He knew what David was going to say before he even said it.

Like the disciples, we forget that God knows us inside out. There is nothing we can keep from Him and nowhere we can go that He doesn’t already know we are at.

“So, if He already knows what I’m thinking and what I’m going to say before I say it, then why should I bother telling Him?”

The answer is in Matthew 7:7-11 ESV,

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.  Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Sure God knows everything about us but that doesn’t mean He doesn’t want to hear from us. Like all fathers, He wants to hear from His children. Look at the last three words in verse 11, “…who ask Him!” It doesn’t say make a wish book of what you want and you will get it. He wants us to take the time and talk to Him.

With the disciples, Jesus would have rather had them ask Him to explain more than to tell them what was bugging them. Sometimes, when someone says to you “A penny for your thoughts.” they are wanting to know what is on your mind. They can see something is going on but don’t know. Sometimes you just respond nothing which makes them want to know more about what really is going on.

When we go around without taking our troubles to Him, we become weighed down by a burden that we are not meant to carry. Just like the disciples had become overwhelmed by Jesus telling them that He was leaving soon. Instead of asking Him what was going on they stewed and speculated as to what He meant. Having taken on a burden that He never meant for them to be under.

How many times do we take on a burden that we were never meant to carry because we don’t take it to the LORD? When we do give it over to Him that is when we finally find rest.

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.                    Matthew 11:28 NSAB