The Power of Knowing

It was my first birthday being married. I could tell John had put some serious thought into the gift just by the way it was wrapped, but I was surprised and a little disappointed when I opened it. It was a pair of beautiful gold and amethyst earrings. The miss was that they were made for pierced ears.

My ears weren’t pierced.

It’s not that the earrings weren’t lovely, they were. I was just left wondering, "How can you be married to someone and not notice they don’t have holes in their ears??" We knew each other well enough to have promised to love and honor each other for the rest of our lives, but apparently we still had a long way to go in knowing some of the other stuff.

Knowing someone is a powerful force. Honestly, thirty years later, my husband is able to pick gifts for me that I would have chosen for myself. We have come a long way in knowing each other, it’s been quite a journey. And our connection, intimacy, and joy is deeply tied to our depth of knowing.

How exponentially powerful it is to know and be known by God? In fact, I think the only word God has used to help us understand how long that journey will take is: ETERNITY.

But as Dallas Willard liked to say, “Eternity has already begun.”

So, let’s start with YOU. How easily and painlessly can you make a list or write a paragraph about the things you really like and love about yourself? It will be pretty difficult (translate: impossible) for you to experience God really knowing you if you don’t know yourself. And that’s not in a narcissistic or proud way…we all know those people (and if we’re honest, we’ve all BEEN those people). No, really deeply knowing and appreciating yourself, including your limits, actually frees you from those dead-end paths.

Seriously, make the list or write the paragraph. Include important things, small things. When you love someone, you want to know those things. God wants to know that you know.

Now, and perhaps more easily, compile another list/paragraph. The things you don’t like about yourself. The habits, struggles, personality quirks;that IF you had a magic wand, well you know. Keep it to the same size as the previous list/paragraph. I’m serious.

Now, introduce those two people to each other. THAT is the person God loves and wants to know. THAT is the person that needs and wants to know God.

(When we keep them separate, we fall prey to image-management, denial, and fear….all things that keep authentic relationships and authentic ministry from happening.)

Self-awareness is a significant starting point, both in our discipleship and therefore in our leadership. This process goes on our whole life long. Every person’s soul has the depth of the universe;and the self-knowing is never ending. But you gotta start somewhere…

Okay, God’s turn. He has invited us, longingly, to know Him. I think that journey is always a combination of unlearning and discovery. How many ways we need to deconstruct our misguided understandings of God that were both limited and in error. This is not easy work, but even in this, God goes ahead of us.

Dallas also said this: “The acid test for anything theology is this…If it fails to set a lovable God, a radiant, happy, friendly, accessible, and totally competent being before ordinary people, we have gone wrong. We should not keep going in the same direction but turn around and take another road.”

These words are our guardrails and signposts toward knowing God. They should create a deep ache in us that becomes our compass.

Psalm 42 says, “Be still and know that I am God, I will be exalted in all the earth…” A simple glance at this verse seems to point to the common and helpful practice of meditation and quiet before God. But J. Parsons, in his thoughtful exegesis of this verse says this:

“This verse is not so much about meditation as it is about the mediation of God’s kingdom in our hearts. The command to ‘be still’ comes from the Hebrew word ‘rapha,' meaning to be weak, let go, to release. ‘Be still’ and ‘know’ are intentionally connected. Surrender is required to know the greatness of God.”

Our work to know God, if on the right path, will allow us to surrender to his goodness. To know anything, person or information, requires us to pay attention. To notice. To be students of beauty and joy, to pay attention to pain and suffering. To wrestle with and search for God in all of that. To read His words and experience His creation, all tutorials on Him.

And so it goes…this rhythm of knowing and being known. In the context of the work we do and the relationships we have, we work on this knowing and the exceeding power of it.