To Be Known
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
And Loved
Especially When We Are Cast Out,
Cut-Off,
Alone.
Job 40:3-4
Then Job answered the Lord: ‘See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.
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1 Corinthians 13:12
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
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Words of Grace for Today –
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There is nothing more frightening than to not be seen.
To have no one see one as a person, as a person of worth.
Or worse, to be seen and valued as worthy only for what one is not. To be a lie.
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In the Psalm for this coming Sunday we read
O God, you are my God; eagerly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
Our hearts, minds and spirits know from where we have come, and they thirst to be seen and known for who we are.
Most often we seek to be seen and known by other people. This is not misguided, for God created us people to be for each other God’s presence, God’s voice, heart, hands, and feet, graciously sharing all God’s gifts.
And as Jesus taught, to be God’s loving presence especially for the poor, the ill, the lost, the outcast, the foreigner, and even for our enemies.
What does God do for those, like Job, whom all others have rejected and there is no one to be God’s presence?
God comes and makes God’s own self visible, palatable, healing, loving, and enlivening in mysterious ways, in ways mystics have spoken of for generations.
Just as Paul knew there was no danger in not being seen by other people, because God still sees us, and knows us.
We need not bring our protests to God for how terrible the world has treated us, though we may. God can take it. We can know that God is Great above all, and we are but dust given spirit as a gift from God,
and we therefore can, especially during our Lenten journey, remain humble and still, bending low before the wonders of God all around us,
witnesses to God’s steadfast love for us.
And when we pray it can be in thanks in words the Psalmist gives us this Sunday:
For you have been my helper, and under the shadow of your wings I will rejoice.
My whole being clings to you; your right hand holds me fast.