To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial.

To be known and not loved is our greatest fear.

… to be fully known and truly loved

is what it means to be loved by God. 

Tim Keller

Whatever our age, background or life experience, we all long to be known and yet at the same time we are frightened by the possibility. What would happen if they discovered what I’m really like, or what I really think? How can anyone really know me when I’m not sure I know myself? 

At the start of a new year we enter into this exploration of what it means to be known—by others and by God. In many ways this is merely a continuation of celebrating God coming among us as “the Word became flesh and blood, and moved right into the neighborhood” (Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of John 1:9). God came among us in human form to experience the highs and lows of daily living so that God would know us in the deepest way possible and because God wants to be known by us as well.