To Be Known...

"The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knows those who trust in Him." Nahum 1:7

It's been a rough week. Well, actually, it's been a rough couple of months. I've been trying to hold it in and be strong, but over the last week I couldn't hold it in any longer. After a phone conversation with my oldest daughter in the States...feeling her pain of being hurt and alone during a particularly difficult time in her life...I went to bed praying and started to cry. That was all she wrote. I cried for the next 48 hours - on and off. Mostly on.

During that 48 hours, life was exceptionally difficult. Things that would normally be only a nuisance became practically unbearable. The electricity was off more than it was on - and was totally unpredictable. I cooked in the dark, we ate in the dark, Roger cleaned up the kitchen in the dark. All the things I would normally use to get through a dark, quiet evening...the T.V., my computer, my tablet...were all rendered totally useless. And since this had been happening for months already, during this particular 48 hours I'd had about all I could take of it. There were other more serious pressures as well, but though it seems like a silly thing...the electricity was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.

I felt overwhelmed. Forgotten. I felt like my precious daughter had been abandoned...and so I felt abandoned as well.

I posted something on Facebook...peripheral things, mostly...because I couldn't post the really deep stuff. The out-pouring of love and concern from my FB pals touched me, and God began slowly bringing peace to my heart. Then this morning...

I've been reading through the Minor Prophets - some of my favorite books of the Bible. Today, when I started Nahum, I came across this verse: "The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knows those who trust in Him."

He knows those who trust in Him.

That phrase struck something deep inside me.

Don't we all long to be known? I don't know about you, but this is something profoundly essential to me. I don't do surface relationships well. I've never been good at idle chit-chat, and I've never understood people who seem satisfied with these kinds of friendships. But it's more than being known...because you might get to know me and find out you don't like me! Believe me...that's very possible. It's being known...and being loved.

He knows those who trust in Him...

He knows me. Not just, "He knows about me"...He KNOWS me. Like I know my closest friends. Like I know Roger. He knows my struggles and what gets to me. He knows the things I tend to worship. He knows my desires and hopes and dreams - for myself, for my children, for my ministry. He is intimately aware of every facet of my personality. He knows where my personality has grown to be more configured to the image of Christ, and where it still needs major overhaul. He knows my jealousies, my discontents, my fears, my failures. He knows what I obsess over. He knows me.

And He loves me!

I think sometimes as "orthodox" Christians, God's love has devolved into a theology rather than a practical reality that reaches down and touches us. We think of it in terms of some "other-worldly," out-there, untouchable, unemotional, wholly cerebral thing. Where do we get that??? Certainly not from Scripture. If Jesus was truly the image of the invisible God, then we know God's love to be personal and affectionate - just look at Jesus' relationship with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus in the Gospel of John. But somehow, we take the Greek word used in Scripture for God's love - Agape - and we so totally separate it from other Greek words for love which mean "brotherly love" or "erotic love," that we end up disassociating it from any kind of warmth and loving affection.

Then, difficult circumstances come into our lives. We throw our fists to the heavens and declare God to be an unfeeling, uncaring ogre. But He isn't. He loves us. He loves Roger; He loves Emily, Amy, Josiah, and Chloe. He knows them. He loves them. He loves me.

In fact, He loves me enough to occasionally pull out from under me the things I use in place of Him to prop myself up (like electricity, T.V., and computer games...or ministry) - because He knows they are useless and ineffective over the long-haul. Sometimes, this is a much longer process than it really needs to be, because I stubbornly cling to these things with a clenched fist - as if they are my life support. I yell and scream at Him as He lovingly and compassionately pries my fingers loose with the tender affection of a doting father. Sure, it'd be better if I just let go all at once, but...

He knows me...and...He loves me.

It is my deepest desire to know and follow hard after Christ. To have a heart after His heart...to have HIM as my ultimate treasure.

That doesn't mean, of course, that things in life don't hurt deeply; or, that I don't still have questions that remain unanswered. But it does refocus my affections...my priorities...my understanding. It does relieve me from despair and it does open my eyes to see...to really see -

I am known and I am loved.