To Be Truly Human is To Be Truly Known

"We weren't created to do it all by ourselves. To be truly human is to be truly known."

"We were created in the image of God, and God is a community."

"Joy is at stake and it only happens when we let the guard down."

"To love at all is to be vulnerable."

If you love, you take the chance of being broken. You take the chance of being hurt. You take the chance of being rejected. You take the chance of being abandoned. Some people love once, love deeply, get burned, and lock their hearts up and never love again. I don't want to be that person. Like Jefferson says in the above video, joy is at stake. It's hard to turn that corner from rejection back to openness, honesty, and vulnerability. You did that once, and got burned. You did it again, and got burned again. Is it worth the risk?

We all desire to be known, loved, wanted. I love the quote in the video where he says, "To be truly human is to be truly known." What does that mean to be "truly known"? Who in your life truly knows you inside and out? Your parents? Your spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend? Your best friend? We all keep things hidden and fear being rejected if people actually know all our darkest secrets. We want to feel loved, despite our inadequacies and flaws.

The good news is: The Lord knows us by name. He knows our desires, our dreams, our strengths, our weaknesses, our hidden secrets. He knows everything about us, and yet, He still loves us unconditionally. I am thankful that He knows me and loves me.

"I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me." John 10: 14

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

Psalm 139:13-16"You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely." Psalm 139:1-4

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5