You Don’t Know Me

How often have you heard—or even said yourself—these words: “You don’t know me! You don’t understand me! You don’t know how it is or know what it’s like to be me!” Whether a fleeting thought of inward defiance or spoken openly for all to hear, the desire to be known is strong inside each of us, especially people who are hurting (and let’s be real, we’re all hurting in one way or another). But in today’s fast-paced world where everyone wants everything quickly, with instantaneous information at our fingertips, and most people not even getting out of their car to grab a bite to eat—it is hard for anyone to pause and take the time to know the people around them.

“the desire to be known is strong inside of each of us. People who are hurting want to be known.“

Why is it important to know someone? Why is it important to understand someone? Because that’s how God made us. More specifically, God made us so that we would come to know him. He desires to have a relationship with us. When Jesus himself says, “I never knew you,” in Matthew 7:23, he simply means he has no relationship with them. He wants to be known for who he truly is. As we come to know Jesus as our Savior, our Master, our King, and our God—then that is how others will come to know who we are: Christ-followers. In our journey to spiritual maturity, we will come to desire what Jesus desires—relationships that bear fruit. We get to practice on each other first. It is important to know what a person struggles with. It’s important for that person to have fellowship with others who have their own struggles in life—and to feel accepted. Our relationships with each other should mimic how our relationship with God ought to be.

CONFESS, PRAY, HEAL

Why would someone who is hurting—who struggles from habits that cause them hang-ups in their life—choose to share intimate details of what they are struggling with? What are we to do with this knowledge? Scripture says that if we share our struggles with one another, we can pray for each other. (James 5:16) So if someone shares personal details with me about their struggles in life, I can come alongside them as a fellow sinner and pray for them. After that, I have the opportunity to share with them my own hurts, habits, and hang-ups so they can pray for me as well.

JAMES 5:16
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

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In the vernacular, it could be said we both got some things off our chest, we cleared the air, and we stopped denying we had some issues we needed to work through. That’s where modern counseling and Catholic confessionals come up short. You’ll never hear the priest opening up about his sins right after you finished confessing yours. And you never get the chance to pray for him because of that. You just get to sit back and receive his prayer and then he prescribes for you to say some prayers of your own—sort of like a spiritual physician. Or if you go into counseling, you’ll never hear your counselor break from their stoic demeanor to share with you how they yelled at their spouse this morning, too. You’ll never get the opportunity to pray for your counselor, either, unless you feel comfortable giving unsolicited prayers. There’s something special about praying in community versus praying in private—but both forms of prayer are certainly beneficial for the soul.

“When we confess our sins to one another, we are answering the question, “Where does it hurt?” When we commit a sin, we self-inflict harm upon our very souls.“

It is through prayer that we can be healed (James 5:16). It’s almost like we become spiritual physicians ourselves. When we confess our sins to one another, we are answering the question, “Where does it hurt?” When we commit a sin, we self-inflict harm upon our very souls. We need to confess and pray together to undo the damage. Praying together is not just receiving prayers from others, but giving prayer to others. The damage we did on our own cannot be undone on our own. Sins wound us in ways a simple bandage can’t fix. We might not be able to see the blood from this wound, but the damage can be seen through our treatment of ourselves and others. Are we bitter? Are we constantly angry? Do we think the world is against us? Do we think that God doesn’t care? All of these questions point to a soul that is damaged.

WE ALL STRUGGLE DIFFERENTLY

This is not a competition to see who struggles the most. This is not even a comparison to show that we might have the same struggles as someone else—because the details are always different. No two sins are the same—and that goes for sinners, too. Everything I just described is confession to one another and prayer for one another so that we can be healed. We can all emerge from the river of denial by grasping firmly to the buoy of truth—and this is done in fellowship with others because someone has to hold the buoy’s tether to dry ground. I’m sure that person is praying that they can pull us to safety. We should also be praying that they can do it, too.

No one knows the heart of another, so no one can truly understand the myriad of emotions and trauma and pain that another person might be going through. As Christian’s, we should not be offering advice—instead, we should lean heavily on Scripture to guide our lives. We should also be very careful when trying to comfort others and avoid saying that we understand their struggles. Even if we think we do understand, we still probably don’t. We are not trying to fix others. Only God can do that. We can pray together and hold firmly to the hope that God will give us freedom from our struggles—since we know with confidence that God will help us (Isaiah 41:10) and restore us (1 Peter 5:10).

“We should not try to fix others. Only God can do that.“

SIN SEPARATES US FROM GOD

Do we need to know sin to fight sin? I think that’s a tricky question. I think we need to know about sin, but we don’t need to know the specifics. The best way to fight evil is to know what is good. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Machiavelli’s The Prince both describe knowing your enemy in order to defeat them. I agree that it is beneficial to know your enemy, but I don’t agree that knowing your enemy is the ultimate path to victory. Contrary to that—from a Christian perspective—I believe the path to true victory doesn’t depend on knowing the enemy at all. And by enemy, I do mean Satan. If you know the enemy’s strengths, all that means is that you know how you were beaten. Even if I knew every strength and weakness of the enemy, it is still up to God to completely destroy him, not me.

“The best way to fight evil is to know what is good.“

The path to true victory on this earth is to know where our strength lies. We must truly have intimate knowledge of the source of our strength—and I don’t just mean knowing where it comes from. As Christians, we know our strength comes from God. So basically, we need to know God intimately in order to defeat the enemy. As we come upon this knowledge through the reading of Scripture and through prayer—knowledge of anything else becomes trivial. When we come to know God, we become empowered to turn away from the sinful things of this world. That is called repentance. Knowing God helps us to know ourselves—which helps us to know others and have others know us. All of this leads to a closeness with God—a relationship more intimate than ever—that was impossible before we repented from our sins. If you don’t know me, it might be my fault. If I were half the Christian I would like to be, I could say to you, “If you would like to know me, then learn more about my Father or ask about my big brother Jesus. We’re all alike because we’re all family.”

“When we come to know God, we become empowered to turn away from the sinful things of this world.“