Does anyone really know you? Does anyone really love you? We are all created in the image and likeness of God in order to commune with God: to enter a relationship with him, to know and love God. We are made to know, love, and enjoy fellowship with God and with others made in His image. But, sin has really messed us up. Now, we have lost fellowship with God, and we fear to be known, but still long to be loved.
Does anyone really know you? Does anyone really love you? Now, the safest course is to hide ourselves and stoically refuse to acknowledge our need for loving fellowship. You cannot love is you do not play the game. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Those who are neither known nor loved tend to be sad, shriveled shells of broken humanity.
As a safer compromise, we will settle for being loved but not truly known. We will receive the love and attention that we crave, but it is not really “me” who is being loved. They are loving a sanitized image, a filtered projection of a self that is not really me. We fear that if we are really known we will not be really loved.
But our greatest fear is to be fully known, and not loved. This, we think, is what ought to happen to us. We are broken, confused, rebellious people. We don’t love people like that, why should others love me when I am like that. If they really knew me, they were reject me.
Our greatest need, our deepest longing, our highest joy is to be fully known and still sincerely loved. To be loved, warts and all. We are often seeking this relationship with others, but slowly, carefully. We receive initial indications of love, or at least potential love from another. Then, we risk unveiling a little more of ourselves and wait for the results. If all goes well, we reveal a little more, then a little more. Until finally, we reveal the dark stuff, the sinful and broken parts of who we are. If they love us at that point, well, we have arrived.
God knows you. He knows everything about you. You cannot hide anything from God. And, in the Gospel, the good news, he tells us that he loves us. God can love even enemies and rebels.
God knows you and still loves you. Will you rest in that love? Or will you continue to hide yourself and ignore your warts? Someone really loves you, the real you. Through faith you can find shelter in the gracious love of God. “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”