A major movie several years ago made an astute observation about what it really means to love and to be truly loved in return.
“When a person knows the worst thing about you, and they love you anyway…then you know you are truly loved.”
What is the worst thing about us? What have we done, said, or thought that we hope no one ever finds out? What would others read in that email on our computer, or pull from that envelope at the bottom of our drawer, or discover locked away in our safe deposit box that we would be mortified to have brought into the light of day?
Where have our lives taken us that we cannot share with others? Were we an unwed mother at seventeen? Do we have a drug conviction? Prison time? Abuse? Family that we want to sweep under the rug?
We carry our personal traumas in our hearts, and we don’t realize that God already knows, and the best part is, he loves us anyway.
1 Peter 3:15 offers us that all-so-important connection with Christ our King:
“But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.”
Matthew 22:37 tells us to love him completely and with all abandon:
“And [Jesus] said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ”
Psalm 27:1 gives us the assurance that he will love us in return:
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”
1 John 5:14-15 illustrates how tightly we are bound with God:
“And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.”
So, what are we afraid of? There’s nothing “bad” that God can find out about us that will make us unlovable. He already knows the worst we’ve done. We can place our confidence in him.
When we open our hearts to God, he opens his right back to us.
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