Getting to Know You

I first knew her through her neighbor, Jean. We didn’t actually get to meet Marilyn, but we heard about her. Her mother-in-law was in that long process of dying and the family was in the midst of a prolonged series of squabbles so Jean asked us to pray for Marilyn.

Each week the Bible Study felt like we knew Marilyn a bit better as Jean continued to give us updates, and a bit more about Marilyn herself. She also told Marilyn that the group was praying for her as she went through this very upsetting time.

We prayed for Marilyn for the entire year. Near the end of that year together Marilyn stopped by Jean’s house to thank us for praying for her. We invited her to stay, which she did. We felt like we knew her and she was welcomed into the midst of the group. The warmth of the group was almost overwhelming to her.

During the next year of the Bible study Marilyn began coming on a fairly regular basis, eventually inviting the group into her home. Now I was getting to know her in the midst of this warm group context. I have always striven to make the Bible study a safe place to share hurts as well as joys. As Marilyn felt more and more comfortable within the group she shared more and more of herself.

Over the next several years we came to know Marilyn, and love her - within the context of the group. She is a very private person, but the loving warmth of the group and the safe environment allowed her to reveal more and more of herself. I felt like I was getting to know her quite well.

Then a year or so ago I invited her to have lunch with me. Marilyn was delighted to be invited to lunch and we went to a nice restaurant where I knew we would have time to visit without being disturbed.

It was quite clear that being in this one-on-one setting was something Marilyn craved and so one lunch-out developed into lunch out about once a month. Each time we are together, just the two of us, I learn more about the private, inner Marilyn. We have developed a relationship that allows a sharing on a deeper level than the group setting. Now I know Marilyn in a very personal way and each time we are together we know each other better.

Getting to know Marilyn reflects how I know Christ.

When I was around 7 my father decided that my brother and I should be in Sunday School. Since we had no car we had to walk to church and the nearest church happened to be a Baptist church. For the first time in my life I began to hear about God and His son Jesus and I began to get to know them.

For several months I avidly learned all I could about God, I wanted to know this person who had made the world, and me, and everything else. The stories I heard were wonderful and I couldn’t seem to get enough.

My Sunday School and Church School teachers kept talking about “inviting Jesus into your heart”. I had no idea what that meant, but one day it struck me that if I wanted to know Jesus even better, “inviting Him into my heart” might do that. So I knelt down and “asked Him into my heart”. Now I knew Him in a different way than just hearing about Him. Now I knew Him in a similar way the rest of “the group” knew Him.

I continued to learn about Him, and I knew Him as the group related to Him, but I longed to know Him even more personally.

I was already reading my Bible on a frequent basis and trying desperately to relate to God and Jesus as the group related to Him, but I had a strong sense that there should be something more to our relationship. So I decided to read my Bible from cover to cover, trying to block out the voices of the group telling me how to relate to Him, and find out about Him myself.

I set my foot on a path that has become a life-long experience. God and I have an almost daily “walk together” and I now know not just about Him, not just as whatever group I am currently in knows Him, but I know Him.

Marilyn has a number of friends, she has a close family, she has a church family and each one of us knows her slightly differently from all the others. Some know a lot about her, but don’t really know her. But even those of us who actually know the inner Marilyn each know her in our own way, in the way she relates to us, to the degree that our relationship has grown.

Many Christians know a lot about God, but I think there are not so many who really know God and even those of us who do know Him, know Him in a slightly different way. I could never state that I know Marilyn best, that I know her better than anyone else, or even that I know all there is to know about her (NO one can say that). And so it is with my relationship with God. Others know God in a very different way than I do, but the way He reveals Himself to others is no greater, no lesser than the way He reveals Himself to me.

Someday we will see Him, as Paul puts it, face to face. And I think it will take all of eternity to really get to know Him. I suspect even in eternity we will each know God slightly differently. After all, He is a VERY BIG GOD. Some days I can’t wait.