I immediately picked up the phone to call my best friend, who lived five minutes away from me and was also raising her light-skinned kiddos amongst a world of much darker-skinned friends in this beautiful (and hard) East African community. I had just lost my patience on my children after hours of long-suffering through a hard morning while also fielding countless community needs that seemed unanswerable, and I felt so weary in how to parent these miniature disciples well alongside living in a place with such deep burdens. 

But even in my embarrassment of my own sin and shortcomings, I didn’t feel ashamed to call her and ask for help and a listening ear. She knew me, and I knew her. We had seen each other at our best and our worst yet still felt completely accepted by one another. 

In the middle of my call, though, I realized in my desire to share the depths of my soul with someone, I had not even thought about bringing my struggles to the Lord first. How often I seek the help from humans before seeking the Creator of the universe who created and knows the depths of me (Psalm 139)!  

Yet we serve a God who chose to be known to us, who also knows us and loves us intimately. Every single bit of us. 

We are loved by the One who calls Himself the Good Shepherd. “I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.”  

Just as the Father knows Him, He knows us? What would change in my life if I constantly meditated on this truth—that our Good Shepherd knows us, calls us by name, leads us out, and goes on ahead of us (John 10:3-4)? 

He is right there, beside us. In our parenting. In both our struggles and joys. In our ministry. In the broken places of the world and of our hearts.  

As we rest more and more in who Jesus is, perhaps our knee-jerk reactions will shift toward a desire to come to Him first, with everything. Still taking advantage of the gift of friendships He gives us in other believers, of course, but realizing that we have a constant friend there with us at all times, knowing us and loving us all the same.