Thinking Out Loud, Volume CDLII

No doubt there's no one else on earth who knows more about my wife than I do. It makes sense that after more than forty years of marriage, no other person could even come close to knowing about her the way I do. We talk to each other daily, 365 days a year. When I speak, she listens. When she speaks, I listen. We go places together. We have meals together. We take walks together. We trust each other. If something I do displeases her, she lets me know. I do the same with her. By the same token, when either one of us does something that pleases the other, we express our gratitude to one another. We know each other so well, we've become experts at interpreting the other's body language, and sometimes we can even discern what the other one is thinking. We went through a period, before marriage, when we said we were engaged. But now, after several decades of being husband and wife, we are truly engaged. Yes, you can say we have a thorough and intimate knowledge of each other. There's another way I could've done it, however, without going through all the actions I just mentioned. I could have studied her. Here's how I would've done it: Now that we have social media, I would have befriended her on Facebook and Instagram, and I would read everything she posts. I would also be sure to listen closely to anything anyone had to say about her. I would find out where she lives so I could pass by a couple times a week, maybe even getting a glimpse of her from time to time. I would learn about all her habits. I think I could become enough of an expert on her, I could even teach a class about her. I would call it an "Angie Study." However, even with all the time and effort I would put in to learn more about her, I still wouldn't know as much about her as I do with the actual interaction with her that I've been engaged in for more than four decades. You see, more than proclaiming ourselves to be experts and bragging about our knowledge of each other, we're actually involved. Instead of me knowing about her habits, we form habits together. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with an "Angie Study," but doesn't the method I discussed in the first paragraph seem like best way to learn all there is to know about her? It almost makes the method of merely "studying" her, like I described in the second paragraph, seem a little ridiculous, except for the fact that we so often follow that procedure when it comes to knowing about God. Sometimes I wonder if we are guilty of knowing about God, without ever reaching the level of simply knowing Him. To know Him, there has to be frequent interaction. We have to walk together. We talk....and listen...to each other, every single day of the year. When I'm hurting, I let Him know. When He pleases me, I tell Him. We trust each other. Now don't get me wrong....I'm not condemning studying about Him. I love a good Bible Study. All I'm saying is, even if I somehow memorized the entire Bible, I could still never know as much about Him as I do when I actually KNOW Him. Knowing Him and knowing about Him are not one and the same. Knowing about Him doesn't require intimacy. Knowing Him does. Preston