Mary Lee is a sixteen-foot, 3,500-pound great white shark tagged by oceanographers off the coast of Cape Cod in 2012. The transmitter attached to her dorsal fin could be tracked by satellite when she surfaced. For the next five years Mary Lee’s movements were observed online with great interest by everyone from researchers to surfers, up and down the east coast of the United States from Maine to Florida. She was tracked for nearly 40,000 miles until one day, somewhere off the coast of New Jersey, her signal stopped—probably because the battery on her transmitter expired.
Human knowledge and technology reach only so far. Those “following” Mary Lee lost track of her, but you and I can never evade God’s awareness throughout every moment of our lives. David prayed, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there” (Psalm 139:7–8). “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,” he exclaims gratefully (v. 6).
God chooses to know us because He loves us. He cares enough to not only observe our lives but also to enter into them and make them new. He drew near through Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, so we could know Him in return and love Him for eternity. We can never go beyond the reach of God’s love.