{Known and Loved}

I don't get a lot of time for quiet reflection, but when I do I somehow always find myself a teenager again, contemplating in awe on the other side of experience at what could have been, but by the grace of God alone ... wasn't.

I've always had one glaring fault of which my mother has had to remind me on a regular basis: I care too much what other people think. 

What can I say? I like people to like me. I love people to love me. It's true. But before anyone can like me let alone love me, they have to put forth the effort to get to know me. My looks alone definitely don't cut it. So, as you can imagine, it's always been tempting to be someone I'm not to one extreme or the other to please people, especially as a teenager.

I daresay it's a fairly common experience.

Think about it. Why do we do the things that we do?

It all boils down to our innate need to be known and loved.

From the time we were old enough to be aware of the sting of rejection we have taken pains to modify our behavior accordingly. It's easy to perceive rejection as a bad thing when we are going through it, but depending upon on our response it can be a very good thing. Life is a series of checks and balances based on what is considered socially and morally acceptable.

Believe it or not, God, in His matchless, all-knowing mercy and grace, designed us that way to help us choose what is right.

Take brushing our teeth for example. It's a simple yet very important, repetitive part of daily life. But why do we do it?

Well, I don't know about you, maybe brushing your teeth is on the bottom of your personal hygiene list, but whenever I have to remind my kids to brush, I also remind them why: no one wants to smell your stinky breath or see your breakfast in your teeth hours, days, or years after the fact. Yuck.

Guess what? They brush. With gusto.

 I had a friend in high school who was so afraid of having bad breath that he brushed his teeth during every recess AND at lunch in addition to morning and night. One day while we were waiting for a class to begin I got up the nerve to ask him why. He confidingly told me that when he was younger people told him all the time that he had bad breath, and he was determined not to let it happen again. And, conveniently, in the process of discovering how to prevent halitosis he also developed a healthy fear of dentists. Talk about motivation. =0)

It was extreme, but he meant well and was definitely headed in the right direction.

Sadly, we all know those who go the other way. They seem blind, deaf, and dumb to their own propensity to self-destruct. They dive head-first into sin with an energy that is as astonishing as it is agonizing. In a determined albeit futile effort to be accepted they decide to be "different" so as to be included by the majority.

Often these people call themselves "Christian" to make their lifestyle further acceptable to an even greater number of people. Nowadays it isn't uncommon to come across "Christian" environmentalists, hippies, humanists, and even homosexuals.

You see, they have a wrong view of God. They don't know Him. And you cannot love somebody you don't first get to know.

When I was a 17 I had a friend like this. He was one of those types that is entirely too smart for his own good. He knew just enough about God and the Bible to be dangerous, but not nearly enough to be effective, despite his vehement affirmations to the contrary.

 He claimed to be called to preach.

 We talked.  A lot.  It soon became clear he was more interested in picking apart the Bible to make it say what he wanted it to, than he was in taking a stand and speaking out for what it actually says. He was a walking example to all who knew him as one who "professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." (Romans 1:22) He ended up so tied up in knots and confused that he has been living like the devil for the past seventeen years.

And he didn't go down alone.

I don't see him often, but when I do all I can think of is the needlessly wasted amazing potential. He could have gone so far with God.

In Proverbs it says that when the wicked forsake and reject wisdom, God will mock when his fear cometh. 

Psalm 37:13 talks about how God will laugh at those who scheme and plot against the just because He sees that his day is coming. This reminded me that the underlying theme of my Bible studies lately have been about how choosing to do wrong is simply self-sabotage.

Jonah 2:8 says, "They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy."

 Yes, our sin has ramifications for all those our lives touch, and I'm not negating that, but the one we hurt the most is ourselves.

God knows what it is to long to be known and loved for who you really are. Not because He is an egotistical narcissist, but because He is what each of us long to be, and He longs to fulfill that deepest longing ~ the one He created in us. We were created with a purpose so amazing, that if we only dared to believe, we would each be astonished at the magnitude of God's plans. We were destined to play a starring role in the most magnificent drama ever.

Talk about epic.

Who doesn't want that? And yet so few are courageous enough to choose it.

I don't want to be of that number.

And I realized something: when I fail to take the time to get to know God, I cannot love Him, and life is just not worth living outside of His love. While our choice to refuse righteousness and wisdom hurts His heart it is not because He cannot handle our rejection. Rather, it is because it pains Him to see us self-destruct. Joy unspeakable, and peace like we long to know is waiting for us to simply reach out and accept it. Yet we waste our time and energy vainly reaching for the empty nothings that glisten and gleam, like a steak laced with glass dangled in front of a voracious dog that someone wants to destroy. That's how ruthless Satan is. Sin is fun for the moment, but it doesn't make life fun. It just makes for a slow, painful, living death.

Face it, we all want to be "different". As Christians it's something we are commanded to do. The problem is that few want to be good. Isn't it amazing that by going the way of the world we are not ostracized for being a freak for, say, wearing a colored mohawk, a gaudy nose ring (like some sad circus animal), pants hanging down past the rear, tattoos, and skin-tight and revealing clothing , but we are ridiculed for doing what is right? Looking decent? One might be superficially accepted as part of the crowd for this for awhile, but you'll never be loved and known like you long to be. You'll just be one more in a sea of faces that have chosen to do the wrong thing instead of a jewel in the remnant who have chosen to do right, living in the favor of God.

I shouldn't be, but I am constantly amazed anew at how upside down, backwards and inside out the world is becoming, aren't you? God and His Word are increasingly the only thing that make life make sense anymore.

The truth is, we will never be loved and known in a way that fulfills us until we love and know God. His knowledge and love of us is what gives us the capacity to love others and therefore be lovable. Outside of that we're just existing, going from one empty pleasure to another awaiting the day of our death, never truly living nor even knowing nor caring what we're missing.

The other day I was home alone when an unexpected thunderstorm rolled through. I happened to be outside as the clouds overtook the sun and the world went from sunny and bright to ominously dark and threatening in an instant.

Life has a tendency to do this.

As I looked up though, there was a break in the clouds right above me. All I could think was how I had never seen blue like that before. The ordinary white and gray of the clouds magnified the brilliance. Tears gathered as I realized I was witnessing something that God, in His love, had done for my eyes alone. Again. 

It never occurred to me that there could be more, but there was. I didn't think the moment could get any better, but it did.

I saw movement.

As I blinked away the tears a flock of tiny birds came into focus. I had never in my life seen small birds fly so high in the sky. They looked like moving slivers against the backdrop of blue. I would have missed them in the clouds.

Slowly, one by one, they disappeared until one, lone bird remained.

As I watched she softly glided in ever widening circles higher and higher into the blue. And I knew she represented what God longs for me to be.

She was oblivious to the coming storm, oblivious to the fact that she was all alone in her worship, oblivious to the observation of questioning onlookers. She was simply relishing in the flight as she lifted her heart to God as if to say, "When no one else will, I will delight in You. When others fall away and doubt, I will still believe You. When other's can't see You, I will choose to see. When others' love grows cold, I will still love you, Lord. All I want is to understand and know and love You. I want to be worthy of basking in the glory of Your presence. 'Though no one join me, still I will follow. No turning back.'"

"Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation" ~Psalms 91:14-16 (emphasis mine)

We are promised so much for so little.  What could be more glorious than a life like that ~ to be known and loved?

Wait,  I know.

Living to know and love God ... more.