Over the last few weeks I’ve found an old chorus running around my head. Part of it says,
I am loved, you are loved,
I can risk loving you.
For the one who knows me best,
Loves me most.
That last line has really caught my attention of late. The one who loves me the most knows the most about me. He knows every doubt I have, every failure I’ve made, every temptation I struggle with and every side-tracked journey I’ve taken. And yet, he loves me to the core of my being. He doesn’t define me by my weaknesses, but by that which he created me to be when I live in the freedom of his love.
The world sure didn’t teach us that. It taught us that to be liked we had to pretend to be someone we weren’t. We had to fit into people’s expectations or risk their rejection, which is why we go away from so many conversations regretting things we didn’t say or do because of what others might have thought of us. We’ve been convinced that people will only like us because they don’t really know us.
If we really knew that the one who knows us best loves us most, we’d be free to be ourselves around others. As with our Father, true fellowship only begins where people are free to be authentic, not when they pretend to be something they think others want them to be. We can finally stop projecting an image and let others see into our weaknesses and struggles instead of trying to hide them. Of course with people there is always risk in that. Some may not like us, but those that are real friends will and we’d find our relationships deepening with them because we’re not having to pretend any more.
Our security in Father’s love opens the door for us to simply and honestly before others, and that will do more than you can ever imagine in helping you taste of the kind of friendships God wants us all to know.
