"Knowing Fully, As I Am Fully Known" by Jonathan Rhoad

When it comes to the big picture, my tendency is to go for certainty: I went to college close to home, I had a job that started that day after college, and my chosen career is one that tends to be remarkably stable— until recently. On top of the pandemic, my university is going through financial difficulty that caused them to terminate the positions of 30% of the faculty. I don’t mind some adventure now and then, but I want a stable base to call home. Layer in the uncertainty that we all have experienced over the past year, and I am anxious like I have rarely been in my life.  

To alleviate this, I have engaged in creature comforts, as they are available to me. Food, watching old movies or TV show reruns, time with family and games. I even had the opportunity to perform in a musical (outdoors, socially distanced, face-shielded) last summer as a release and a distraction. The other day as I was completing a puzzle with my daughter, it occurred to me that I was approaching my anxiety as if it was only a battle with flesh and blood, not a battle of the spirit. As the image of the puzzle came together, I was reminded that Paul wrote, “Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, as I am fully known (1Cor13:12b).”  

I had forgotten that this verse is found in the “love chapter” so commonly heard at weddings (including ours). It is one of those passages that bears re-reading on a regular basis. It reminds me of what I am meant to be and what I am all too often lacking: patience evades me; I experience anxiety when I am self-seeking or easily angered. I also remember that I am not required to transform on my own, but that God’s love in me will bring about that transformation, if I let it.