Dear Faith Family,
Knowing is a big deal. Don't you think? Aren't we continuously after knowledge of some sort? Whether we're seeking out knowledge within our particular vocation (including parenting!) or knowledge about the world's happenings (or other people's little worlds!). Or whether we're clarifying knowledge of ourselves and the future or even knowledge of God, we spend a lot of our time and energy searching and processing knowledge.
While seeking knowledge is a good thing, a worthwhile pursuit, as our Proverbs tell us*, there is a particular knowledge that is foundational to all our knowing. What do you think that knowledge is?
If you are like me, your first response might be "The knowledge of God." Am I right? Isn't that the essential knowledge, the knowledge that leads to a life lived well and forever? Well, sort of.
In his famed book, "Knowing God," theologian and pastor J.I. Packer wrote,
"What matters supremely, therefore,
is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God,
but the larger fact which underlies it--
the fact that he knows me."
Ironically, but most beneficial to our everyday and eternal life is that the knowledge we need most is not one we possess but receive. Not the knowledge we have, but the knowledge God has...of us.
Stop for a moment and consider Packer's wisdom, that what "matters supremely" for your life, how your life is lived and where your life is going, is not the fact that you know, but that you are known.
What does God know about you? Well, as our psalm of examen reveals, everything! But the real question is, how does feel about you? Or, as David Benner puts it, "What is God's knowing of you? Well, as Jesus' life reveals, love!
"For this is how God loved the world, that he gave his only Son..." (John 316)
"In this the love of God is made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him...So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us." (1 John 4:9, 16)
God's knowledge of us is not sentimental. It is a complete, unhidden knowledge that does not overlook our brokenness, failings, and mixed affections. Yet, it is a knowledge that knows us on the other side of healing, forgiveness, and wholeness. He knows who we truly are, ones created and crafted by Him, fractured in our reflection, and loved to completion.
This week, as those God knows thoroughly and whom God loves to wholeness, let us continue the meditation we began on Sunday. I encourage you to set aside at least two times this week to be quiet and alone with our Father, listening to the invitation of God's knowledge and love in Jesus,
"Come to me, you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me,
for I am gentle and lowly in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
(Matthew 11:28-30)
Being rooted and grounded in love, may we have the strength to comprehend with all the saints the breadth and length and height and depth, really know, of the love of Jesus that surpasses knowledge. Love you, faith family! God bless.
*See Proverbs 1:5, 4:7, 15:14, 16:16, 18:15, 19:2, 24:5...for starters!