One of the students in my youth group posed the question: “Why do some people find it so hard to open up to God when He knows everything anyway?”

A leader volunteered that maybe it’s because we tend to think that if we suppress something, it will go away. She suggested that maybe people are afraid to open up because when you talk about something, you can’t pretend it doesn’t exist.

I could see truth in her statement, and maybe that really resonates with you, but I found that my silence resulted from something else entirely. My problem lay directly in the ending of my young friend’s question. God already knows everything… so why bother telling Him about it?

It took me a long time before I realized that God actually likes hearing from me. Yes, He already knows the things that are in my heart, but He wants to hear them from my mouth. To know that I want Him to know. Maybe that thought is hard to wrap Your mind around, so let me phrase it this way:

My aunt used to regale me with tales of “Samantha this” and “Samantha that”. While I loved hearing what my little cousin was doing, nothing delighted me more than when Samantha herself would walk up to me in wide-eyed wonder exclaiming, “Guess what?”

She could tell me the same story I had heard only five minutes earlier from her mom, yet I would hang on Samantha’s every word. Why? Because I loved hearing the story from her point of view, seeing it through her eyes. I loved the childlike enthusiasm. I loved the fact that she wanted me to be privy to the many facets of her life.

So be reminded that, yes, God already knows the intimate details of your life, but He also cares greatly about you. Nothing delights Him more than when one of His children approaches Him in wide-eyed wonder and says, “Guess what?”

So go ahead and give it a try. Your heavenly Father is waiting to hear from you.