There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother

I was reading my friend Tim's blog this morning. Here's something that caught my eye in the post: 

"Nobody knows you like God knows you. He knows the fears you hide, the dreams you have in your sleep and those you have while you’re awake. He knows the strengths in you that you don’t even know in yourself. He knows the sin that you hide from every other soul. He knows your years and your moments, both those that lay behind and those to come. His thoughts toward you are for healing, wholeness, peace and power."

All of a sudden, I remembered laying on my bed as a teenager in high school, imagining these long conversations with a guy I liked, in which I was able to eloquently describe everything going on in my mind and heart, and magically, he understood me perfectly, and knew just the right questions to ask me, and just the right things to say to comfort me. I longed to be understood. I longed to be known -- and not just known, but known AND still loved. 

Our former pastor (when we were in Raleigh at Summit) JD Greear often talks about this desire to be both known and loved. If we are loved, but not known, it's just shallow and fake. If we are known and not loved, it's kind of our worst fear come to fruition. We are either too much, or not enough. What we really long for is to be known to the depths of our being, and loved in spite of it. That's why I spent hours wishing I had a boyfriend who would listen to me. I thought that's what I was waiting for. Someone to complete me. And I wasn't altogether off-course. I was waiting for someone to listen to me, someone to complete me. I was just willing to settle for far less than I was being offered.

When I was 17, in October of my senior year of high school, I finally quit resisting God's pulling on my heart, and I took the first step to follow Jesus, and I gave Him my life, and I haven't turned back. Immediately, I started reading the Bible, and I literally could not get enough of it. It's like I had been starving and someone had finally given me a plate of food, and I couldn't just eat one thing off the plate. I had to have a bite of every single thing on the plate. I would start off in one place, and then I'd flip to another, and then I would wonder about something else, and go there to read. The word was alive! I was alive! The Holy Spirit was now living in me, showing me truth that I'd never seen before. 

I remember the first time that God showed me how the whole Bible was about Jesus. I was reading Proverbs 18:24, "A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." I imagine I must have sat upright then -- "That's Jesus!! That's Jesus! You mean this whole Bible is about Jesus?? It doesn't say His Name here, but I know it's about Jesus!!" 

How amazing was that moment when I realized all I'd ever longed for, I had found. There is one who sticks closer than a brother, and His Name is Jesus. He knows every single thing there is to possibly know about me. He loves me more deeply than anyone else ever could. He has more reason than anyone else to not love me, yet loves me all the more. "Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. You will be true to Jacob, and show mercy to Abraham, as you pledged on oath to our fathers in days long ago (Micah 7:18-20)."

Amen.