known

Life is a fascinating thing. We experience such a range of things and think about these things even more. Sometimes when I feel 'reflective' I playback my life up to this point and usually end up laughing. I guess I'm just easily amused at my story and amazed by the complexity of it. I've walked so many terrains and been in such contrasting places that it's hard to think of a 'theme' for my life ... except for one thing. -God's faithfulness. I ran into Psalm 25:10 the other day and got blown away by these words, "All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness." I guess what struck me is that my love and faithfulness (toward anything!) is all over the place. But never, not ever, has there been even a short moment where my life hasn't been marked by His love for me and a faithfulness that makes no sense at all.

A little while ago, God addressed in me an unbelieving heart and He hasn't dropped the subject since. Recently, though, I have been waking up to the fact that belief is a much deeper thing than I have ever come close to realizing. Ever notice how 'cautiously' we believe? I think I know why I'm so cautious. I think I'm cautious because I don't really know God. I mean, I know He's sovereign and powerful and just and loving and etc... but do I? Do I believe that? The truth is, I spend more time trying to convince myself that those things are true than I do delighting in their reality.

It is here that God's loving, faithful voice began to speak. You know those moments in life where someone read your mind and did something for you that was super spot on? Leaving you feeling like this person took the time to truly know you and wanted to show you that? Well, that's how God started to talk to me. He got really personal, so 'spot on' that it gives me chills just thinking about it. And suddenly in that moment I heard Him say, "Hannah Elizabeth, I know your name." Something changed inside me in that moment, being truly known will do that I guess. I always knew that God knew me, but experiencing Him communicate that - speechless.

I got caught up in this as it sunk in deeper and deeper that my name is written on His heart and graven on His hands. And that He summons me by my name. I just can't think of it getting any more personal than that - my very name! It is always there before Him. Permanently.

So in the middle of feeling overcome with delight at this reality, He spoke again and said, "I'm showing you that I know your name so that you might know Mine." Stunned. I don't think He meant 'know' as in memorize His Names from an index. I think He meant 'know' as in intimately and experientially encounter them. I think He wants me to believe that He is who He says He is and to walk with Him in light of that. He wants me to know Him as He knows me. And to take it a little further, I think He wants this because He knows it's what I was created for. This relationship, it's life! It's the place where all strivings cease.

Makes me wonder if this is what C.S. Lewis was discovering when He said, "It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

Knowing God. That is infinite joy indeed.