When I know something about someone else things change. The knowledge that I am talking about isn’t superficial, maybe information, or gossip based series of rumors; rather it is a series of insights that is based in experiential fact and grounded into the mind and heart. With the insight buried into my soul, I find myself looking at the other person through different glasses – sometimes in love, on other occasions in anger, and in many cases in absolute confusion. This is the good and the bad that comes with experiential, relationship driven insights.
It is an awesome thing to understand those around you. It is hard though to imagine that others understand you in the same way! Do I really want to know – that is, see, understand, and believe that my friends see all the things that make up who I am? Is it possible that they can see things in my life and understand motives that drive me, and my decisions that I may not even see myself? Could it be that they know all this and more and still like me? I don’t think so! Given what I know about myself this just isn’t possible! How, why could this be?
Denial and self deception runs deep in my life, especially in this area. My weaknesses are secrets that only I know. My pain is hidden deep within my soul so nobody can really see into those rooms. My joy is carefully released so that everything is as it should be. Except that my belief and denial may just be at the heart of my own misunderstanding of the world in which you and I live.
The reality of life is that others see much of what constitutes my soul, far more than I realize. It doesn’t stop there. God describes his own insight.
“I can see your pain and poverty—constant pain, dire poverty—but I also see your wealth.” (Revelation 2.8)
Before you worry about what others, including God think of you, remember that with this knowledge God also calls you friend.
