To be known but still loved by others is a basic human need. We speak often of being transparent as Christians. Some may have heard C.J. Mahaney speak this week, and he seems unnaturally gifted at being transparent. Robert Frost has a great poem that describes the complexity of our desires to be known but still remain hidden. There is no reason to think that he was a Christian, but he understood that God himself has both revealed himself and remained hidden.

Revelation

We make ourselves a place apart
Behind light words that tease and flout,
But oh, the agitated heart
Till someone really find us out.

‘Tis pity if the case require
(Or so we say) that in the end
We speak the literal to inspire
The understanding of a friend.

But so with all, from babes that play
At hide-and-seek to God afar,
So all who hide too well away
Must speak and tell us where they are.

Robert Frost, as published in A Boy’s Will, 1913

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