Can God read your mind? 99 people out of 100 who believe in God would say, Yes, God can do anything. He can read your mind. But if you are a serious Bible reader, you probably have had reason to wonder if that is really true—at least, if it is true all the time.

To even ask the question is to call the issue in doubt. And it is an important issue to say the very least. So why would anyone doubt it? After all, the Psalms tell us The Lord knows the thoughts of man and Shall not God search this out? for he knows the secrets of the heart.

But there are times when reading the Bible that what we think we know about God suddenly doesn’t work. Let me tell you a story from the Bible to illustrate where the problem comes in. We’ll begin near the very beginning, in Genesis, chapter 2…