Psalm 139:1-2, “O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.”

We live in a world that is becoming more and more impersonal. We are often made to feel as though we are just a number without a name. The bank sees us as an account number. The stores see us as a credit card number. The government sees us as a social security number; even the church can sometimes be guilty of seeing us as an attendance and tithe-paying number.

When I was a boy, I remember going to the bank where I knew everyone from the president to the janitor, and they all knew me. We not only knew their names, but we also knew all about their families, and they knew ours. At the church where my dad was the pastor, all of us kids grew up with one another. If someone was absent, we knew who they were, where they lived, and we usually knew why they were not there.

Things are different today. A generation is growing up with most of their relationships coming through the medium of a computer screen and an iPhone. In mega-churches, people are no longer individuals that the pastor can call by name, and many people like it that way. They enjoy the namelessness of the crowd with no accountability, no responsibility, no one to answer to, and no one to answer for. We are becoming just a face in the crowd.

And yet, the Psalmist says that God sees me, knows me, and loves me. We are much more than just a face in the crowd to Him.