Sawubona: Fully Known, Fully Loved

 

One of the deepest longings we all carry is the desire to be known. We want someone to know the real us, not just the version we present to the world. We want someone to see the victories we celebrate, the failures we regret, the questions we quietly carry, and the wounds we try to hide, then somehow choose to stay. At the same time, many of us spend an incredible amount of energy making sure people never see the whole picture because we are afraid that if they did, they might not love us anymore.

That is why Psalm 139 continues to draw me back. David begins with a simple but profound truth. "Lord, you have searched me and known me." Before David says anything about his accomplishments or his failures, he acknowledges that God already knows every part of him. Every thought, fear, motive, and scar. Nothing is hidden from the God who created him.

What captures my attention is not simply that God knows David so completely. It is God's response to knowing him. God does not pull away or hesitate. He does not discover something unexpected and decide David is no longer worth loving. Instead, God's response is faithful presence. The God who searches every corner of our hearts is the same God who refuses to abandon us.

There has never been a moment when God discovered something about you and reconsidered His love.

That sentence has settled deeply into my own soul because so much of our spiritual anxiety is rooted in the fear that God will eventually see something in us that causes Him to walk away. We fear that if people knew everything about us they would leave, and somewhere deep inside we begin to wonder if God might do the same.

Psalm 139 dismantles that fear.

Remember who wrote these words. David was not writing as a man with a spotless past. He was a murderer. He abused his power to take another man's wife and then orchestrated that man's death. When confronted, he lied and tried to hide what he had done. Yet this is the same David who could honestly write, "Lord, you have searched me and known me."

That should make us uncomfortable.

We are often far more willing to believe that God loves the version of ourselves we present than the person He already knows us to be. We can even find ourselves extending more grace to David than we do to the people sitting beside us. We read his story with compassion while looking at someone else's story with suspicion. Somehow murder, abuse, deceit, and betrayal become ancient biblical history, while the sins and struggles of our neighbors become reasons to keep them at a distance.

The God who knew David completely never abandoned him. He confronted him. He disciplined him. He transformed him. But He never stopped loving him.

The God who knows the worst about us is the same God who gave His Son for us. We are not loved because God is unaware of our brokenness. We are loved in the full light of it. Nothing in your story has ever surprised Him. Nothing has ever caused Him to rethink His grace. Long before you were aware of your failures, God already knew them. Long before you confessed your sin, Christ had already carried it to the Cross.

If that is true, then it changes far more than the way we think about ourselves. It changes the way we see every person we meet. If God has never looked at me through the lens of surprise or disgust, then I should be careful not to look at others that way either. Grace received becomes grace extended. Being fully known by God should make us slower to judge, quicker to listen, and more willing to love people whose stories are different from our own.

I cannot help but wonder how different the church might look if we truly believed that. It is easy to decide who people are before we have taken the time to know them. We can become so focused on what separates us that we never learn the story that shaped the person standing in front of us. David does not finish Psalm 139 by asking God to search everyone else. He asks God to search him. That prayer changes everything because it shifts our attention away from fixing other people and toward surrendering our own hearts.

The older I get, the more convinced I become that discipleship begins with humility. I have enough in my own heart that needs the transforming work of Christ without making someone else's life my primary concern. That does not mean truth no longer matters. It means I trust the Holy Spirit to do what only the Holy Spirit can do while I focus on becoming more like Jesus myself.

That conviction shapes the way I try to pastor and the way I hope to treat every person I meet. Every person bears the image of God. Every person has a story I do not fully understand. Every person deserves to be treated with dignity because every person has already been seen by the God who created them. That includes people whose politics differ from mine, whose theology differs from mine, and whose experiences of life differ from mine. It also includes my LGBTQ neighbors, friends, and family.

In a recent post I wrote about what I call pronoun hospitality. For me, it begins with a much deeper conviction than grammar. It begins with the belief that every person deserves to know they have been seen. Calling someone by the name and pronouns they ask me to use is one way I communicate that I value them as a person. It is not about pretending every theological question has been answered. It is about beginning where I believe Jesus so often began, with relationship, compassion, and hospitality.

I have found that people are far more willing to have honest conversations when they know they are genuinely loved. Jesus never sacrificed truth, but neither did He weaponize it. He consistently moved toward people before asking anything of them. He listened, ate with them, and restored their dignity. Then He invited them to follow Him. I want my life to reflect that same rhythm.

Search me God and Know me!