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04.23.2026
I spent a lot of time this semester crying at home, not begging God to change me, but just trying to make him aware of my feelings. Trying to be known by him. And as sad and/or pathetic it sounds, those nights have been some of the happiest times of my college years. Trying to be known by the one who knows everything. Sounds pointless. And maybe it is. But there is something very appealing about the idea of pouring your heart out to someone who already knows all there is to know about you but still cares about you anyway. There is no "strategic communications" needed. No SOAPStone method, no rhetorical devices, no need to calculate. I just communicate to another being my subjective experience of the world. And somehow, I am made better by it.
John Owen in Communion with God:
Objection 3. “I cannot find my heart returning God’s love to him. If I were fixed upon him, then I could believe that he delights in me.”
Answer 3. This is the most preposterous course that your thoughts can take. It is a good way to rob God of his glory. “This is love,” says the Holy Spirit, “not that we loved God, but that he first loved us,” 1 John 4:10, 11. You would invert this order, and say, “This is love, not that God loved me, but that I loved him first.” This takes God’s glory from him. He loves us without a cause in ourselves, and we have all the cause in the world to love him. Yet, you would have the contrary be true. Something needs to be in you for God to love you, even if it is your love for him. You think that you should love God before you know whether he loves you or not. This is the flesh speaking. It will never bring glory to God, or peace to your soul. Lay down your reasoning. Take up the love of the Father as a pure act of believing. That will release your soul to the Lord in the communion of love.
To further reveal this truth, let us discover the eminence and privilege of the saints of God. Whatever low opinion the sons of men may have of them, it appears that the saints have meat to eat that the world does not know of (Jn.4:32). They have close communion and fellowship with the Father, interchanging their love with him. Men are generally respected according to the company they keep. It is an honor to stand in the presence of princes, even as servants. What an honor it is, then, for all the saints to boldly stand in the presence of the Father, and there enjoy his heart’s love! What a blessing the queen of Sheba pronounced on the servants of Solomon who stood before him and heard his wisdom! How much more blessed, then, are those who stand continually before the God of Solomon, hearing his wisdom and enjoying his love! Others have fellowship with Satan and their own lusts, making provision for them and receiving perishing refreshments from them. They are the ones “whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.” But the saints have this sweet communion with the Father.
Moreover, what a safe and sweet retreat the saints have from all the scorns, reproaches, scandals, and misrepresentations that they undergo in the world. When strangers abuse a child in the streets, he runs with speed to the heart of his father. There he makes his complaint and is comforted. In all the hardy censures and tongue-persecutions which the saints meet with in the streets of the world, they may run to their Father, and be comforted. “As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you,” says the Lord, Isa. 66:13. The soul may say, “If I have hatred in the world, I will go where I am sure of love. Though all others are harsh to me, my Father is tender and full of compassion. I will go to him and satisfy myself in him. Here in the world I am considered vile, frowned on, and rejected. But I have honor and love with the Father, whose kindness is better than life itself. There with him I have all the things in the fountain that others have only in the drops. In my Father’s love there is everything desirable, the sweetness of all mercies, and I have them fully and durably.”