I knew next to nothing about my wife on the day I married her. We had dated for a few years, we had spent countless evenings talking on the phone, we had attended church, we had organized events, and even run a business together. But despite all that, we still barely knew one another. The knowledge we had was genuine, but it was shallow. Still, that small amount of knowledge was enough to compel us to invite our friends and family to a little church in Ancaster so we could pledge our lives to one another.
I have never had a moment’s regret for marrying Aileen (which is not the same as saying we have never had disagreements or difficult times). This is remarkable when I consider how little I knew of her on the day of our wedding. I loved and appreciated her as far as I knew her, but in retrospect can see how little knowledge I really had.
Fast forward through sixteen years of marriage, and our knowledge has increased dramatically. It has increased to a level that all those years ago would have seemed downright creepy. Through the pleasure of living together, the toil of working together, the intimacy of sleeping together, the delight of having children together, and all the normal joys and trials of life, we have come to know one another in a much deeper way. I love her much more now than I did at the time, because today’s love is based on much more substantial knowledge.
Don’t hear me saying that I have now learned everything about her, as if sixteen years has been sufficient for that. I am fully aware that, should the Lord grant us thirty-two or sixty-four years together, I’ll look back and marvel at how little I knew of her in 2015. This is part of the joy of marriage—spending a lifetime growing in my knowledge of, and therefore love for, another person. This is part of the honor of marriage, that another person would allow me to know her to this degree, to allow me to know her mind, body, and soul.
When I first began writing these words, I intended to make a comparison to the Christian’s relationship with God. And there is a sense in which the comparison works. But there is another sense in which it fails.
When you became a Christian, you did so on the basis of partial knowledge. You had genuine knowledge of genuine truth, but it was very limited knowledge. Still, it was enough—it was enough to see yourself as a sinner and Christ as a glorious Savior, and so you put your faith in him. But to some degree it was still a leap in the dark. Then, as you have grown as a Christian, you have inevitably come to a better and deeper understanding of God, and his glory and grace; that small faith has been rewarded as it has grown into a fuller and more robust faith. Your love for God has grown as your knowledge of God has increased.
But God’s love for you has remained unchanged. It has not grown a bit, and that’s because God’s knowledge of you has not advanced one bit. Before you were born he knew everything you would be. “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Psalm 139:16). Before he saved you, he knew everything you would do: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). He knew it all. His knowledge of you was complete and is complete. His love for you was complete and is complete. It will never change. It can never change.
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