For the bedtime reading for our two older girls, we’re in the process of working our way through the Chronicles of Narnia; right now, we’re six chapters in on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is and always has been my favorite of the books. (Hey, I’m male, and the son of a sailor to boot, and it’s the most classically adventurish of the lot.) This evening, I was reading ahead a bit, and in chapter seven I was struck by an exchange I’d completely forgotten about:
“I think you’ve seen Aslan,” said Edmund.
“Aslan!” said Eustace. “I’ve heard that name mentioned several times since we joined the Dawn Treader. . . . But who is Aslan? Do you know him?”
“Well—he knows me,” said Edmund.”
Well—he knows me. Most of the time, it seems our focus is on whether we know God, or whether other people know God; but Jesus makes it clear that there are plenty of people who “know God” but God doesn’t know them. As my friend the Rev. Tryg Johnson has put it, if we go up to the White House and ask to be let in because we know President Bush, we can talk all day and it won’t get us anywhere; but if President Bush comes out and says, “It’s all right—I know them, they’re friends of mine,” that’s quite another matter. That we know God, if we truly do, is an important thing, yes; but the truly important question is, does God know us? And if we can say, in all honesty and assurance, that we are known by God . . . everything else is secondary to that.