Most people come to a knowledge of God by either coming to an awareness of Him through everything they see as the miraculous spectacle of creation. For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and divine nature, so that all are without excuse (Romans‬ ‭1:20‬). Or they come to know of God by being told about Him. Or by reading about Him somewhere.

     But what if you could not see? And what if you could not hear? How would the astonishing beauty and genius of creation be able to stir your knowledge of God if you had never seen any of it? If you lived in a world of complete darkness? A monochromatic silence that offers little more than an inscrutable and impenetrable nothingness? How would everything made, including the masterpiece of man, be able to bring a realisation of God like the light of dawn shining ever brighter until the fullness of day? (Proverbs 4:18).

    And what if together with no sight, you also could not hear? How does such a person come to a knowledge of God? For in all that surrounds us, they cannot see Him. They cannot hear of Him. They cannot read of Him. They are constrained in ways that I simply cannot fathom. Ways which make my heart ache for every such person. Ways which have effectively muzzled every avenue for the light to shine in.

     And yet, the remarkable Helen Keller was not only rendered blind and deaf at the young age of a year and a half, but despite every barrier of blindness, deafness and muteness holding her life ransom, at a young age, after she had come to a place of eventually being able to communicate, when she was introduced to Jesus Christ and the gospel story by Philips Brooks, her joyful response was, “I always knew He was there, but I didn’t know His name!”

     How does a mind that has never seen the wonder of God in all of creation, a mind that has never even heard of God, a mind that has never read of God, be a mind that not only knows, but that has ALWAYS KNOWN that He is there? Unless life is in the Spirit? Which is from the inside out, not from the outside in?

     The tragedy of Helen Keller’s condition brings me to a deep, deep sorrow for her and every soul somehow constrained to such a life. But even in that great sorrow, the Spirit shows a silver lining. Which is having been spared from the lie of the world that life is from the outside in. Which is in the pursuit and accumulation of possessions and position. That life is what we fill our lives with from the outside in.

     Our great and merciful and powerful LORD our God, for every person who knows that You are there, but who does not know Your name, we ask and pray that You make a way for them to come to know Your name! For what a great tragedy it is to know something, but to not be able to give it a name! For are You not, after all, first and foremost Elohim? And are You not also Yahweh? Are You not ABBA? And El Elyon? Are You not the great El Roi, the God who sees? Are You not El Shaddai? And Yahweh Yireh? As well as Yahweh Nissi? And are You not the great healer, Jehovah Rapha? And are You not Yahweh Shalom, the LORD our peace?

Our LORD our God, for every person who is unable to hear Your name spoken, or is unable to see the beauty of Your name written, for every soul constrained physically, emotionally, spiritually from knowing Your voice, we ask with bended knee and heart, that the great God who sees, El Roi, and the great God who heals, Jehovah Rapha, be the great LORD our peace, Yahweh Shalom, for EVERY such person. Be for each and every one of us, the God that heals our deafness and blindness to You. Let the whole world know Your name! Let the rocks cry out Your name! (Luke 19:40). Let all the earth be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God, as the waters cover the sea! (Habakkuk 2:14). For is it not written: “but indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD”? (Numbers 14:21).

     For though a man be injured with blindness and wounded with deafness, have You not declared: “Can a man hide himself in hiding places so I do not see him?" declares the LORD "Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?" declares the LORD.”? (Jeremiah 23:24).

Which is to fill every man with the knowledge of the glory of You.

Which begins with knowing Your name!