When you're part of Liverpool football club, you'll never walk alone.
Now with any of us, there's many ways in which you can be though.
For instance, in my job, I'm seen as the youth worker guy or the upfront guy,
but that's not all of who I am. In the gym,
I'm seen as the guy that benches loads.
Yes, yes, yes. Come on, come on, come on, let's go. Yeah, yeah. Take her home.
But that's not all of who I am either. To my closest friends,
I'm seen as the biggest joker.
Well, that's not all of who I am either.
In order to truly know someone,
we have to know all these different sides to them,
which combined make up who they really fully are. And like everyone,
there's parts of me, I'd rather not everyone see.
Is your name Leah?
Yes.
Did you play professional basketball for Ireland?
Yes.
Do you have a degree in fine art?
Yes.
Did you steal my Liverpool onesie?
No.
Listen, I think it's fair to say that everyone would admit to wanting to be known.
At least to a certain extent.
But what it can often boil down to is the amount of us that we want to be known.
Especially when you think of all the horrible things that happen online with
people being named, shamed, and canceled because of their views or
behaviors. Let's be honest,
it can feel safer to keep our real selves hidden.
Depending on who we're with, we can so often cheat, right?
We might change our clothes, interests or even our accents just to fit into different groups.
Sometimes we're so used to fitting in that we don't even know who the
real us is even anymore. When it comes to God though,
we can't choose how much of ourselves we reveal and we can't hide behind a mask.
He sees the full picture and knows us better than we know ourselves.
In the Bible, in Psalm 139,
written by the famous giant killer David,
he says that God knows everything about us and sees everything.
When we get up and what we're thinking.
He even knows the very number of hairs on our heads.
I wonder how you feel about that.
It's a lot to think about that God knows everything.
Even what we think, say, and do in secret.
I know the temptation here is for shame to rear its ugly head,
but it actually gives me peace because the Psalm says that God made us with
love and he thinks well of us.
Even though God knows everything and I mean everything,
he's for us.
Jesus came into the world so that we may know him.
Yes, but he also came to bear our wrong doings and die for us.
It's not that God is OK with the things we say or do that hurt him
and other people,
but he chooses to offer us forgiveness so that those things don't weigh us down
or define us.
Now we're all scared. If people see our real authentic selves,
they won't accept us. And hey, we get it.
People can be harsh and they can often reject people that show the true
authentic selves.
But wouldn't it be amazing to be fully known and fully accepted?
Or we believe you can't be with God? Let's see what you think.
Would you rather be liked by everyone but not really known
or be fully known by everyone and risk being canceled?
Probably, my instinct is to be liked by everyone. Really easy thing.
Um, to to be liked on the surface, but not known, not known deeply.
I don't really see the point of being known by everyone, you know.
I'd rather be liked by everyone, I guess. Hmm.
I would like to be, um,
known by some source of people and not known by some other source of people,
if you know what I mean.
Hands down. Definitely fully known, right? True to myself.
Have you ever laid a foundation? Would you know where to start?
How big to make it, what to make it from?
Do you know how vitally important foundations are?
A good foundation is the difference between a house lasting 10 years
or a thousand years. Between a train staying on its tracks or not?
Or is school sinking to one side or not?
Between a bridge collapsing or my makeup passing the cry test.
Listen, our point though is, the most important part of any build is to get
the foundation correct first.
OK? But why are you telling me this? I'm not in construction studies.
Hear me out. Imagine this house is you. It's lovely, isn't it?
So here's your door where you let people in. See where I'm going with this?
You also have some windows so people can see in a bit and they vary in size.
And then you have your various rooms with closets and safes and
maybe even a panic room.
Ultimately, this is your house and for the most part,
you can control how much someone can see or be welcomed in.
But what people will never really know or see is the security of the house.
The strength underneath that will determine how the house will fair when
the storms of life come.
Now, truth be told, for most of us the house in this analogy, it isn't complete.
And I'm with you with all the work in progress.
Now, when it comes to this pursuit of being known,
letting people in behind the mask, our inner securities, our confidence,
how we feel in our own skin,
it's all defined by what we build our lives upon, our foundations.
You see, what we think about ourselves and what we allow others to speak into our lives
is of crazy importance.
Literally, the difference between us thriving or struggling.
Hiya.
Morning. Come in for a cuppa. I was at parties with Dr. Dre.
The only thing he said to me was, 'Move over.'
And so I always dreamt of being a singer.
I moved to London when I was 20 to pursue it.
I gigged about maybe five times a week, trying really,
really hard just to make it in the industry.
I just always had a desire to be a singer full time.
And what comes with that is that you need to be famous, you need to be known.
And then I started to move things online and I would wait for a bigger
artist and I'd say, we're going to release a song. But go to studio,
have my band there be one of the first covers basically, that was up on YouTube.
From then we got hundreds of thousands of views.
Then I was scouted for a show called the Voice.
And then once I was on the Voice, the things just absolutely escalated.
It was amazing because the first thing I knew, I was in LA with Will, Will.I.Am,
and I was touring with Will.I.Am and Jessie J and Black Eyed Peas.
My social media and things went from zero to overnight,
suddenly, you know, hundreds of thousands of people that knew who you were.
So I made a record that I absolutely loved. And then from that just,
it happens to a lot of artists within the industry,
You get what's called as 'dropped from your record label',
which basically means that
they've stepped back from your project and you're no longer
going to be able to release music. And I just felt really sad about it and very,
very disappointed. And just quite confused and a bit lost.
I've been a Christian all my life.
I was a Christian from when I was four and I really was,
I really knew God and being on the Voice, I was really scared.
It was the most nerve-wracking thing I've ever done. One of 9 million people.
And I woke up every morning,
I would get up an hour earlier than I needed to be at the studio just to spend
time with God. And then whenever I was
in an industry that was just literally so up and down that it's been the only
thing that has kept me OK.
Now I'm in a place where
I'm not as known at all and I'm really OK with it.
We all want to know our life as being important and there's been a reason for it
and that we've added something to the world.
But I think that we maybe don't know as much the beauty in a lovely ordinary life.
Just being married and having kids
and getting to do music because I love it and 'cause I want to do it.
For me, I'm relieved there's someone that I don't have to pretend with.
To be sure that God knows everything about me and still chooses to love and
forgive me completely is what gives me the security to build my life on.
Knowing that God speaks into my life is what makes me feel comfortable in my own
skin. Ultimately, my value comes from what God says about me,
that I'm his child, I'm his masterpiece, and that I am known.
With all the ways you can be known in this life,
our heart and desire is for you to feel encouraged
to be fully known by God.
