Knowing you...

For the first time in our four years here, this being our fifth Holiday Season, we invited our local friends to our home to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. We made turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes and all the fixings of a good Thanksgiving feast. But that is not really what made it special. We went around a said what we were thankful for as most Americans do on this Holiday, but this year what I had to be thankful for was very different and unexpected for most of our friends. 

The past three years at Thanksgiving, I have tried to focus on other things to be grateful for and look past the most obvious struggle that I am going through in order to do that. But this year that was the very source of my Thanksgiving. I only realized it the morning before our first Thanksgiving celebration that I had come to a point of surrender that I never had reached in these past three years. 

As we began to sing the words to a song that I have sung many times, I was filled with the overwhelming reality of this truth. ..

“Knowing you, 

Gsus, 

knowing you, 

there is no greater thing.” 

The truth of those words reverberated in my being like never before and I knew that was exactly what he wanted me to share with our friends and I was pretty sure with the world, now and always. 

In these past three years life has been filled with so much disappointment and hopelessness at times. I have no more reason to hope now than I ever did during these years. But I do have hope. I have hope in the everlasting joy of knowing my Sav!our. His love is that good. I have walked with him for several years, but have never had the opportunity to experience intimacy with Him in the way that I have recently.

He has taught me that in the midst of hardship I can either choose to draw closer to him than ever before or allow that hardship to harden me and separate me from him. I have allowed it to separate me from him and I’m not saying that I won’t do that in the future if this continues. But right now I am choosing to let this draw me closer to him. To rely on him fully as the giver of all gifts. 

So I'll leave you with the words of this song, to meditate on. To remind you of this precious gift, the gift of a truly intimate creator who wants nothing more than to know and be known by his children. 

"All I once held dear, built my life upon

All this world reveres and wars to own

All I once thought gain I have counted loss

Spent and worthless now compared to this

Knowing You, Gsus, knowing You

There is no greater thing

You're my all, You're the best

You're my joy, my righteousness

And I love You L0rd

Now my heart's desire is to know You more

To be found in You and know as Yours

To possess by fa!th what I could not earn

All surpassing gift of righteousness

Oh to know the power of Your r!sen life

And to know You in Your sufferings

To become like You in Your death, my L0rd

So with You to live and never die"