
Becoming… Known
I have been longing for something, fighting for it in fact. This year it started to show up and manifest in ways that my heart truly was not ready for, so it led to this resistance. In the midst of the resistance and lack of me wanting to receive love fully, God came looking for me. I spent 24 days in Psalm 139 and allowed God to show me the intimacy of what it looks like to be known by Him and his people.
"Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me " Psalm 139:1
Searched and known. Search literally means to try and find something by looking, and known means to have a personal experience with a person. The opening verses reveal how thorough God’s watch-care is over your life (v.1). I say “watch-care” because he is watching, but it’s not a disinterested observation. It’s careful attention. It is valuable, it’s vulnerable, and it makes you feel like you matter deeply (because you do).
I believe God does know everything about us and cares about us greatly and Psalm 139 is a declaration of this truth. God made us, knows us, and loves us — not because we are perfect but because we are His. This is wonderful and life-changing news, but this Psalm is also much more. David (the writer) awakens us to our longing for intimacy with God and shows us how to respond to His love. The final words of this Psalm are a prayer of surrender. We surrender to God when we see how precious we are in His eyes. Anything we could imagine for our lives is but a drop compared to the abundance He desires for us.
It can be so easy to forget how much we matter in a world that is not always good at displaying love rightly. Things go wrong at work, you feel misunderstood by loved ones, or sometimes life just feels heavy. Over the last few months, I have had to trust and lean on God for hard things and even trust the people that are around me for help too. I felt like I did not matter, that I was too much and every time God reminded me that I was enough and beyond valuable in his eyes.
You see, here is the ugly truth, we would much rather go it alone and be reckless in the process than trust what it takes in being known. We do not want people tapping in and stepping on our toes because they love us. We don’t want them looking us in the eyes and knowing that stuff is really out here falling apart. It exposes the sad reality that we would rather choose our own independence over God hopping into our situation or Him using his people to love us out of (or despite) our circumstances.
Inviting God to search me and know me is inviting Him to show me myself — my beauty and my darkness. Practically, it was me opening my mouth and telling a friend I was scared. It looked like me ignoring fewer calls from my family and trusting that they wanted to help. It looked like me trusting Him with a hard season and Him truly creating beauty from ashes. He is the only one who knows the depths of both. And He is the only one who can restore me to the perfection He planned for me from the beginning.
God,
What a joy it is that you know everything about me and even when I do wrong it never separates me from your unfailing love. You give it in abundance and it never runs out for me. I trust that as I lean into you that I will get to experience more of your grace and your presence. Thank you for always choosing me in the deepest of ways.
Signed,
Becoming...Known