to know fully

I'm not sure what happened to the expression "looking through a glass darkly", but I'm sort of glad it is gone. You see, during my first year of seminary it was all the rage to quote Paul's image of partial knowledge. The context in which I heard it was always a senior in all of his or her full knowledge comforting a lowly junior on the journey.

"Don't worry, Steve, where you are now, its like... (dramatic pause as if they're making it up as they go along)... looking through a glass darkly."

I have to admit, I hated this. It made no sense to me. It was usually completely unrelated to my question about a professor's office location. It was overused and trite.

Two years removed from that drivel, I think I'm in a place to understand again Paul's imagery of a glass darkly, or a mirror dimly. This world in which we live is but a faint glimpse of the kingdom of God. In ourselves we see someone made in the image of God, therefore we have some, albeit small, understanding of God. Yet in the age to come we will see God face to face, just as Moses did, and will come to know fully the nature of God; love, grace, peace, and mercy. The double edged sword of knowing God will be ever so pleasing and ever so painful as we recall all the times we turned our back from pure love to our own devices and desires. Surely our hearts will ache within us.

Still, it will be a great comfort to know fully, even as we have been fully known.