Being Clearly Seen, Fully Known & Deeply Loved By God

I’m in a fog of sorts right now, even though it’s 64 degrees and sunny with clear visibility in my ‘ hood. My cataract surgery: postponed! My ears are stopped up and I can’t taste or smell anything due to my cold. So today my sense of touch and my spiritual sense assume the sensory load. However, my  impaired vision lead me to a number of epiphanies. In this moment, I wonder just what it really means for me that I’m being clearly seen, fully known and deeply loved by God.

God Spies with His Inimitable Eyes

I find there’s so much to learn in my newfound “blindness.” I choose to focus on how God sees me. He sees the light and the dark side of each one of us. But our “to be restored bodies” are His primary vision encompassing who we are and who we’ll become. As I consider my deep need to be fully known, I come to grips with its gravity. It’s perhaps the most desired human experiences. Saccharine ballads, mushy novels and sappy chick flicks dramatize it in exaggerated romantic terms. But knowing really is loving. In the Bible, to “know” actually implies a level of intimacy between a man and a woman. Likewise, we the bride of Christ are known by our Bridegroom in a uniquely pr0found way.

Because God is omniscient, (all knowing), God sees our full future potential. He longs for our success. Of course, He doesn’t love our missteps. But thankfully, we’re continually rescued through redemption when we confess our shortcomings to Him. Our thoughts are divinely discerned. Disasters averted. Providence bestowed. What an unfathomable blessing! Like the parent who knows what’s best for His child, so God knows the best for us. His ways are not our ways, as He tells us in Isaiah 55:8.That means He knows us far better than we know ourselves!

Our Reflection Is Full of Potential in God’s Eyes

Surprisingly, seeing ourselves through His eyes proves to be a dual exercise in humility and sufficiency. No one really understands us like our Creator. Not our parents, spouses, closest friends or ourselves. So I vow to rise to this hefty challenge and drastically alter my perception. Mine is one of inadequacy as a 21st century woman. Like a beauty pageant judge, my inner critical rises to the occasion. So I’m not thin enough pretty enough, young enough – just not enough by culture’s standards. But I work diligently on my sense of self. Because visual measuring sticks are not part of God’s view of me at all. So I set an intention that they won’t color mine either. “Man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart,” (1 Samuel 16:7.)

What a contrast, culturally speaking! When I look in the mirror, flaws jump out at me like popcorn kernels in a scorching, oil lined pan. My hips need lipo. My chins make me look like Jabba the Hut! Why are my ears so long? As Julia Roberts famously said in “Pretty Woman,” the bad stuff is easier to believe. Does this resonate with you? Why is it so hard for women to gaze into the looking glass and like what they see or at least not loathe it?  I once visited a spa where a woman, with only half of her body draped in a towel, sat brushing her hair and admiring her reflection. After my hour long massage, she was still there admiring herself! I was dying to know her self-loving secret, but was too embarrassed to converse with her beautiful half-clothed self.

Love In All Its Glorious Inclusion

Fortunately, God sees beyond all that surface chatter. That includes more than just the things we think others are thinking and saying about ourselves. Lumped in with that is the negative self talk taking up residence between our impressionable ears. He formed us “in His image,” as we read in Genesis 2:7. That’s not to say we’re perfect in His eyes. Yet He sees the light and the dark side of each one of us.  Our “to be restored bodies” are His perception of who we are and who we’ll become. That can be our go-to as well.

We are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and that’s where our true identity lies. Because of that sacrifice, heirs of God’s elect may eagerly embrace their royal title. And unlike British royals, this uplifting monarchial designation can never be rescinded or lost once it’s been claimed by the repentant.  They know they’ll inherit a royal priesthood and enter into a holy nation (1 Peter 2:9)  They can hold fast to that regal sufficiency.

The Restless, Matchless Love of God

But because our God’s benevolence knows no equal, He throws royal formality out the window when it comes to relationship. He doesn’t maintain  a stiff upper life, arm’s length relationship with His beloveds like some modern day royals are said to do. No, His love is lavish, extravagant and knows no bounds. We are the “apple of His eye, (Deuteronomy 32:10) and His love covers all memory of our misdeeds ‘as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12.) And He’s willing to go after the one lost sheep out of a hundred because no one is dispensable in God’s economy. Our Good Shepherd will “lay down His life for the sheep,” as we read in John 10:11.

Jesus really did lay down His life for us. Out of His great love. Our paper valentine gestures pale in comparison to that kind of sacrifice. His love  reaches far beyond even the most well intended marriage vow. It even transcends the bond between a human parent and child. Even though we are called to love everyone as we love ourselves, who among us could ever come close to achieving it? God gave the life of His only Son so we could have the abundant life He imagined for us at the beginning of time.

It’s not driven by performance.

Or contingent on appearances.

It’s never capricious or fleeting.

And never ending.

It’s is the only love of its kind. We are uniquely wired in such a way that it’s the only one that truly satisfies.

Valentine’s Day Challenge

I’d like to suggest a love practice to begin in this, the celebrated month of love. It’s born out of something I once observed as a practice myself. During a particularly low point in my life, I was isolated from many social groups. Because of the challenging behaviors of my special needs child, I was often unable to join in with other young moms in group situations. Fewer invites came. I am grateful this was long before social media, I can only imagine the sting of continually looking at the pictures of what I’d missed! One day I was pouring over God’s word, feeling isolated and unseen. A verse suddenly shot out at me.

“Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and breadth of HIs love…(Ephesians 3:18.) My heart literally skipped a beat. What a word picture! I’m rooted. Completely secured in His divine landscape. I’m empowered. I’m given a concrete description of a sacred space with dimensions.  It’s an incomprehensible, infinitely vast expanse. An infinite where this inimitable love can never be measured, much less contain! It’s a love virtually unequaled in its scope. Best of all, it’s available for the taking with no strings attached. All we have to do is continually say yes to Jesus, in all our brokenness and stark imperfection.

I challenge you

I challenge you to ruminate on this verse daily until it penetrates every fiber of your being. My prayer is that you, like me, will experience a profound change in how God views you. Thank God in advance for how He will change your view of yourself in the process. As you grow, you will learn to love yourself, however flawed, through God’s eyes. Acquiesce to His grace and let it wash over you as you drink in His perfect love. If you do, I can promise you, as we read in John 4:14, you’ll never thirst again.