He KNOWS me. . .

I am starting this blog to hopefully give God all the glory, and to be honest with myself and others, so that I can become a real, transparent, woman who is effective in her personal and professional life. To make my life count for his glory.

Here's some verses about spiritual intimacy, about God's intimate knowledge of ME, US.

Psalm 44:21 He knows my heart


1 Samuel 16:7 He sees my heart


Job 33:4 He shaped me and gave me life


Psalm 69:5 He knows my mistakes


John 2:23-25 Jesus knows my heart/what is in me


Isaiah 59:2 My sin separates me from the perfection/Holiness that is God


1 Corinthians 5:21 If I accept that God loves me and made me, and that sin separates me from this love, I can become the righteousness of God. Wow.



Here's the real thing:

The truth is I have been afraid of trusting, of admitting that this great love exists. I know I need spiritual intimacy, and I need a saving love. But believing that I matter to the God of the universe, believing that I was created to be the righteousness of God, is honestly pretty intimidating. If I don't matter, I can screw up as much as I want and there is no real significance. But to think my words and actions are eternally affecting- holy crap. I better get my act together.

Sometimes Christians come across as inauthentic. That's probably because we are human, and we forget the roots of why we are Christians in the first place. I am not perfect. I will tell you things just so you will like me. I lie. I curse. I put myself above others. If you have a standard, I'm sure I've broken it, biblical or non-biblical. I cannot save myself from myself, so I need a savior to do this. Jesus has done this, and his saving/atoning power makes sense. (Books that are helpful- Basic Christianity by John Stott, and Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis).

Here's an awesomely revealing quote from Blaise Pascal (17th century mathematician and philosopher, and unabashed Jesus lover. There IS nothing new under the sun)


The characteristic of human nature is to love onself and to consider only one's self. But what else can one do? It cannot help its own love being inconsistent and miserable. It wants to be great and sees it is only small. It wants to be happy and finds it is wretched. It wants to be the object of other people's love and esteem and sees that its faults deserve only their dislike and contempt (ouch!). Finding itself in this predicament, it reacts in the most unjust and criminal passion imaginable. For it conceives a deadly hatred for the truth that would rebuke it and convince it of its faults. It would like to eliminate this truth, and not being able to destroy it, it represses it as much as it can in the consciousness of itself and of others. So it takes every precaution to hide its own faults from itself and others, and cannot bear to have them pointed out or noticed.


Spot on Blaise. I don't want anyone to know my faults, and I don't want to know the truth, because THEN I will have to respond to that truth, which means change. So I just push it down to that secret spot and react emotionally any time someone has the slightest criticism. Right? Right.


Here's his response to this behavior:


Unquestionably it is an evil to be so full of faults, but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and yet unwilling to acknowledge them, since this results in the further evil of deliberate self delusion. We do not want others to deceive us. . . . So we ought not to be annoyed that they know and despise us because of our faults, because it is right that they should know us for who we really are and despise us if indeed we are despicable.


The problem is, man alive, how do we do this- fight against our own nature? I know I've tried the whole self chant "just don't think about yourself, Shelly come on, just be real". Man I'd say most of the time, if not almost always, nothing changes.


BUT then John Stott reminds me in Basic Christianity- I'm going to paraphrase because I don't have the book on me (dangit!):


Man cannot save himself from his selfishness anymore than a patient (in need of surgery) can heal himself without a surgeon.

(Just admit it! You would pass out doing your own appendectomy. Come on.)

And THEN that reminds me of a Bible verse my good friend Greg quotes, Romans 12:2:


Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

And this one (2 Corinthians 12:9-10):

But [Jesus] said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

So not only are we changed by the knowledge we have in Christ of this amazing love he has for us, but by being authentic and admitting we are weak, he becomes perfect in us.

Thank you Jesus! I pray that through your love and acceptance of us we can be authentic people for your glory!

OH yes and I start residency next week! All prayers welcome!