I Am Still With Thee.

"I know you." Have you ever had a stranger utter those words to you? I suppose it would depend upon the inflection of their words whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. A happily spoken, "I know you!" With a smile and obvious happiness, would be a good thing. A harshly-worded, "I know you!" With a furrowed brow, and angry eyes would indicate this knowing wasn't such a happy occasion. Both scenarios would be a bit confusing if you didn't know the person proclaiming knowledge of you. You might frantically search your memory for some sort of recognition- school, work, friend of a friend, an acquaintance at some event, maybe a person you sat next to at a doctor's appointment or saw at a grocery check-out, the list could go on for a long time and in that split second of trying to figure it out and failing you realize it would be easier to just ask…

"How do you know me?" You might ask with a smile or your own frown depending on the initial encounter. What you want now is to know how you are known, and if maybe this is a case of mistaken identity. Thinking you are known when you really aren't known at all.

When someone declares knowledge of you, you want to be able to declare it back to them. A memory of a meeting- good or bad. "Oh, you're the person who helped me get that package off the high shelf in the store." Or perhaps, "Oh, I accidentally knocked over your cart the other day." You want to comprehend the knowledge because we don't particularly care for people knowing us when we do not know them. In fact, we can't fathom how very well they know us if we do not know them in return.

Can you know someone without their knowing you? Of course, it's possible. You could be a private detective who has done a really thorough deep dive into a person's life from birth to current age and know so many facts about them, you probably remember things the person hasn't thought of themselves for years. You know that person factually, and maybe even by second-hand information from that person's family and friends. You might know the person has a great sense of humor and even heard many stories about their sense of humor, or you may have learned they have a short temper. These things you've learned make you feel as if you know the person and yet your claim to knowing them is not a firsthand experience but based on the views of others. Yes, you could know from a financial profile of them that they are a person who likes to spend money. Or you may discover the person hoards money and is someone who doesn't part with their hard-earned income easily.

We can KNOW all about a person and still NOT KNOW them truly.

How often after years of being a friend or loved one to another have the words- I never really knew you at all- come up? I've no clue, but I'm sure it has happened.

When we are known by someone the degree of their knowledge of us will vary, and not a single person alive will ever know us completely, not from the standpoint of how we know ourselves. You could talk all about yourself, leaving nothing out and still their knowledge of you, their perception of all you've said will not be taken from your own point of view- it is impossible.

Being known.

How important is being known? We like to think our loved ones- spouses, children, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers all know us. We especially like it if our best friend(s) know us. We say things like- "You know me, I…" and you tell of something you surely think the other person knows. A shared laugh, a shared knowledge and agreeing upon the trait that is yours, these are all good things. To have a close friend insist they never knew something about you that you're sure they know, is confusing and you hope quickly it is a joke they're playing on you- a pretending not to know. When that friend is adamant about their lack of knowledge and being completely serious, it's a bit frightening, definitely worrisome because you believed they had to know this fact about you, how could they not?

Also, finding out a completely different side to someone that you thought you knew is cause for alarm. This happened to me very recently and to say it threw me for a loop is a bit of an understatement. It was actually very, very frightening to think I didn't know something so important about someone I thought I understood and knew. I was taken off guard and my whole world tilted off its axis in such a way I struggled hard for months and months to get it right again. All that because I thought I knew someone only to find out I didn't know them as I believed I did.

Knowing and being known, this is important stuff. Sometimes we want people to know us, expect them to know us and get upset when they claim not to know us. We get exasperated when we think someone should know us 'by now', they've been around us for years so surely they knew something would upset us because it has upset us for years. Sometimes we don't want others to know us, it rattles us to hear someone say they know we are a certain way when we thought we hid if very well from them. A lot of times we exist in our own spheres of knowing who knows us and we don't want anyone else intruding on our spheres and saying they're a part of it when we don't want them to be.

I can know someone for a few minutes and a short shared conversation could make it seem like I've known them for a lot longer. I can know someone for decades and a short shared conversation could reveal things I never knew about them.

This knowing, why am I going on and on and on exhausting the subject of knowing someone or someone knowing someone else, or not knowing?

Because being known or not known is something intimate, something we try to control. We want others to know us as we reveal ourselves to them. I might have work friends who know the 'work me'- a person that disappears when I go home and become the 'at home me'. I may have an acquaintance me that is nothing like the me once you really have spent time with me. It might not be that I'm even deliberately trying to be different in each scenario I live, but circumstances are automatically eliciting the different behaviors that make it appear I'm a different person each time. I wouldn't expect someone who just met my husband to know him like I do. I wouldn't want them to know him like I do, any more than I'd want others to know me like he knows me. We don't just expose our fears, our desires, our hopes and dreams, our nightmares to people we hardly know.

I allow you to know what I want you to know of me and if you somehow figure out more of me without my wanting you to know, it can make me feel uneasy, and exposed.

If there were such a thing as mind readers, real mind readers who could get into the minds of others and know their thoughts, we'd all be in a hurry to figure out ways to block that ability. We don't want anyone knowing our every thought, right? Especially if someone catches us having a bad thought but doesn't hang around long enough to catch the remorseful thought that follows.

God can and does know us- all of us every last awful bit of us, and every last good bit of us- God knows it all. There is no way for pretense with God. We are known.

However, when Jesus will tell many people upon His return to get away from Him, that He never knew them - this will be true too.

Mat 7:22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

Mat 7:23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Surely He knows us all, and this is true. What He is telling these people is… you may have lived believing you know me, and are living for me but you weren't living for me at all. You didn't do any of those things you claim to do for me, you did them for yourself. You may have used my name, but I wasn't a part of what you were doing. You lived your life filled with deceit even to yourself, you lied to yourself, but you can't lie to me. You told everyone you knew me- you spoke as if you were relaying messages from me, you prayed and your prayers were seemingly answered but it wasn't me who answered them. You lived a life you claimed I was a part of, all the good things you did you told others I was using you to do them- but it wasn't true. You never revealed your heart to me, you used my name without ever really letting me know you beyond knowing your selfish intentions which are far from one who is truly mine, far from my knowing them intimately as I know those who are mine.

Jesus knew the sin in the person claiming to know Him and to have lived for Him. Jesus knew the lie of the person claiming to have done only good in His name. What Jesus didn't know was the love that would have made them His, truly His.

The analogy of a shepherd with his sheep is a good one. Sheep come to know their shepherd and when they hear their shepherd's voice they follow him. If they hear the voice of a stranger they aren't going to follow him, he's not their shepherd. Just as a pet dog knows their owner, they'll often come to the call of their owner but not the call of a stranger.

Joh 10:24 Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.

Joh 10:25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.

Joh 10:26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.

Joh 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

Joh 10:28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

Joh 10:29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

My sheep hear my voice and I KNOW THEM, and they FOLLOW ME.

The Shepherd KNOWS the sheep who hear His voice and Follow Him.

Knowing and being known, we long for Jesus to KNOW US, we long to hear HIS VOICE, we long to FOLLOW HIM, and to do this is a PART OF OUR LIVES, a living for HIM, a constant FOLLOWING of HIM in ALL we do.

David- beloved of God- wrote this song about GOD knowing him:

Psa 139:1-18

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.

O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.

Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.

Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.

How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!

If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.

Like David, we need to be able to say- When I awake I am still with thee.

When Christ returns for us, let us awake with HIM. Let us be known by Him.

All by HIS GRACE.