Known By Dick And Ruth FothSample

To Know and Be Known

We live in the Digital Age, where what we know has been proffered as the thing that gives us life, makes us interesting, and gets us ahead. Some of that may be true. But in the process of gaining knowledge, we might lose wisdom. The thing that takes us wide cannot take us deep. In the end, who I know outweighs what I know a hundred times. It is in satisfying friendships that we find wholeness and, on the backstroke, happiness. The question is, How do we move that direction?

Friendship starts with story and ends with story. It is who we are. When we tell our stories in an authentic and vulnerable way, they become journals with Velcro markers to which others can connect. From our shared stories come affirmations and covenants and dreams. Perhaps best of all, our stories are the one place in our lives that we do not have to compete and we always get an A!

We do not need and are not able to walk with dozens of people closely. Jesus walked with twelve people and was close friends with three. We should be so fortunate. He tells us that He will be present where two or three gather (Matthew 18:20). That two-or-three number just might be the most powerful number in the world!

So we encourage you not to think small but to think deep. We believe that if you think deep about God and others, your life will have meaning and wholeness and joy. A joy centered in a profound kind of knowing. If to know and be known is at the core of our deepest friendships, that ancient troubadour is singing our song in the first verse of Psalm 139 when he says that God has searched us and knows us. God not only desires friendship for us, He desires friendship with us. What a gift!

What could you do this week to invite someone else to tell his or her story?

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