Known

Minus 5 degrees this week and crystal flowers scattered on my skylight - each one a delicate lattice, uniquely formed and intricately beautiful. Like us - intricate, unique, a work of art.

 You too are intricately made – and intricately known. 

 Jesus says, “I know my own” John 10:14

 Firstly, that means being known by name. In his superb Commentary on John’s Gospel, David Ford writes, “The friends of Jesus can trust in being known by name by Jesus”. Linger here and listen - Jesus calls you by name.

 Secondly, it means being intricately known in every corner of your soul – even the bits that scare you.

 I massively recommend Dr Paul Brand and Phillip Yancey’s book, “Fearfully and Wonderfully”, which is crammed with mind-blowing facts about how we are extraordinarily and intricately fine-tuned. It is a book full of wonder, suffused with compassion for those whose bodies don’t work so well.

 Did you know that when you listen to music, your eardrum trembles by as little as a billionth of a centimetre, and somehow your astounding brain converts it to pleasure?

 Did you know that brain contains about 85 billion neurons (give or take!) which shoot tens of thousands of electrical messages around your body so that you can twitch your toe and imagine sliding down a pink elephant’s trunk in subsequent seconds. Try it!

Did you know that in your mother’s womb, a couple of dots fused to grow into 60,000 miles of blood-cells and capillaries? Bone formed which is lighter than steel yet strong enough to stop us collapsing into puddles of flesh. No other material has been found which could do that.

 The God who created the intricate wonders which make up you, knows you intricately. Even when you don’t know yourself.

 Such comfort here – God knows when I wake heavy-hearted and when my heart sings. He knows it all – from the little niggles to gut-wrenching grief, lingering sadness to bubbling joys, from world-winning faith to anxious questions, glorious triumphs and sinful failures. And still, he loves us – enough to lay his life down.

 But the promise does not end there – it is not only that we are fully known but that we will fully know Jesus JUST AS the Father knows him and he knows the Father (v15). What an invitation! We are invited into the depth of knowing that is at the heart of the Trinity, no walls, no rejection.

 If an ice-crystal on my skylight can make me stop and stare, what beauty is ahead in eternity as we embark on a journey of knowing and loving the Maker of it all?