Sam Wells suggests that it is very hard to believe “that if someone truly knows you, they will truly understand and love you.”
That is because of the sense of shame that we feel.
Sam Wells is reflecting on Psalm 139 which begins with the words “You have searched me and known me.” He points out that we make knowing and loving enemies of one another. God, on the other hand unites them.
The separation of knowing and loving is an everyday experience for us. Lovers of Coronation Street are seeing that played out through the interplay between Phelan, Gary and Owen. Phelan “knows” Gary was prepared to leave him for dead, and uses that knowledge vindictively for his profit.
Jesus also knew that people were prepared to leave him for dead, but his knowledge is full of love, just as his love is full of knowledge. That love showed itself in Jesus’ absolute passion to forgive those responsible for his suffering.
With us, knowing and loving are separate, and there’s always the fear that if someone really knew us, they’d have a power over us that they could use to hurt us, or that they’d see through us and cease to love us. But God’s knowing is different. God’s knowing and loving are indistinguishable. There’s never a moment when God knows but doesn’t love, or loves but doesn’t know. That is the gospel we can hardly begin to imagine. God wholly knows because God wholly loves; and God wholly loves even though God wholly knows.
from Learning to Dream Again p24
Grits and Grains 
Very interesting. I shall have to ponder that. That’s one of the differences between God and us. We can’t imagine because being human our imagination is limited but his/hers is boundless
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Yes, it is a difference. But I wonder if it is such a difference. Don’t we realise that the two belong together the longer we are in our loving relationships?
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Thank you David. Yes! How many ridiculous dividing walls could be demolished in this world if we could but “know” and “love” in tandem? I feel I’m banging on a bit about Pope Francis recently – but amongst the many things I think he has spot on is the suggestion that “confession” (in whatever form that might take, for any of us) helps us face the truth of who we really are. And yes, that’s not always pretty, for any but the most exalted saints. But we can learn to love ourselves as God does. And, loving ourselves, stand a better chance of learning to love others more perfectly. One of the things that struck me about the recent (Belbin) gathering at Foxhill was just how lovable everyone else there was / is. Perhaps, ultimately, the Church’s primary reason for existence is “Learning to Dream Again”?
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Thank you David. Yes! How many ridiculous dividing walls could be demolished in this world if we could but “know” and “love” in tandem? I feel I’m banging on a bit about Pope Francis recently – but amongst the many things I think he has spot on is the suggestion that “confession” (in whatever form that might take, for any of us) helps us face the truth of who we really are. And yes, that’s not always pretty, for any but the most exalted saints. But we can learn to love ourselves as God does. And, loving ourselves, stand a better chance of learning to love others more perfectly. One of the things that struck me about the recent (Belbin) gathering at Foxhill was just how lovable everyone else there was / is. Perhaps, ultimately, the Church’s primary reason for existence is “Learning to Dream Again”?
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Amen to that Simon. I’m constantly amazed at the company I find myself in. Lovable indeed and cause for great joy.
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