Monday, March 30, 2009

being known.

Yesterday was a day just for me and Jesus. We hung out all day in my room. We played music and sang, we watched a movie or two, we read about Him, we laughed out loud and we talked intimately with each other. It was a day dedicated to learning about the other. There is something built inside of all of us to be known, to have someone fully and deeply know everything about us. We long for that, I long for that. Soon, my understanding of this grew yesterday as I read a section of the book "Knowing God" by J.I. Packer. It brought me to tears, and of course have to share it with you. 

"What matters supremely...is not... the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it - the fact that he knows me. I am graven on the palms of his hands. I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained intiative in knowing me. I know him because he first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when his eye is off of me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care falters. 
This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort - the sort of comfort that energizes, be it said, not enervates - in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good. There is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery can now disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench his determination to bless me. 
There is, certainly, great cause for humility in the thought that he sees all the twisted things about me that my fellow humans do not see (and I am glad!), and he sees more corruption in me than that which I see in myself, (which, in all conscience, is enough). There is however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, he wants me as his friend, and desires to be my friend, and has given his Son to die for me in order to realize this purpose. We cannot work these thoughts out here, but merely mention them is enough to show how much it means to know not merely that we know God, but that he knows us."

Enough said, right?

I am known by God. It's a truth so hard to fully understand and acknowledge, however, so important to receive. 

Sunday, March 29, 2009

so excited.

The new website for Grace Campus is up...

Check it out!

www.gracecampus.net