Knowing (08/03/2024)

Knowing about someone isn’t the same as knowing them. I knew a great deal about my husband’s mother, Ruth, before I ever met her. I’d pumped my husband, Kenneth, with a myriad of questions. I wanted to know as much about her as I could. After all, she was his mother. But then I met her. And she was so much more than I’d realized. She had a way about her that made one feel comfortable immediately. Her smile said, “I see you.” She taught me a great deal about being a wife, a mother, a daughter, a good woman. Knowing Ruth, having a relationship with her, was transformative.

Relationships are like that. Being in a relationship with another opens us; love is the key that allows that openness, that vulnerability, that desire to be for the other. And I think of all the people on this earth who only know about our LORD but have never met Him. How I wish they would. I can’t imagine even with my vivid imagination how different the world would be if every one of us knew the LORD.

It is one of my prayers. Knowing the LORD rather than just knowing about Him makes all the difference. When we know the LORD, we have sat in His presence, we have experienced His love, we know our own limitations, we know of our need for Him and for His love.

Most of us are familiar with the famous painting of Jesus knocking on a door. The door represents our hearts and minds, our very person. He would come seeking to be allowed in. Will we open our minds and hearts to Him? Will we invite Him into our lives, into our world, into ourselves? Will we build a relationship with Him?

As we continue on our journeys, let us remain open to our LORD, to coming to know the LORD more deeply, more lovingly, moving from knowledge of to knowing by spending time with the LORD. May we seek to open ourselves to the transformative power of His love, allowing it to change us. And may we encourage others along the way through word and deed to do the same – to meet the LORD – to come to know the LORD through a relationship of love, through time spent together.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.