The Willingness to Be Known

On presence, vulnerability, and the kind of listening that invites us to be fully seen.

It was just supposed to be lunch. A bite to eat between other obligations, nothing too weighty. But you know how it goes—some tables don’t want to be left too quickly.

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“O Lord, you have searched me and known me!

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from afar.”

Psalm 139v1–2 (ESV)

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It was just supposed to be lunch. A bite to eat between other obligations, nothing too weighty. But you know how it goes—some tables don’t want to be left too quickly.

I was sitting across from a man asking honest questions. Real ones. And somewhere between the fries and the second refill of sweet tea, he asked me how to build deeper friendships with other men. What does it take, really?

And I said, slowly and without flinching,

“Are you willing to be known?”

The question didn’t hit the table like a grenade. It landed more like a quiet hand on the shoulder. Steady. Still. True.

Because you can’t build real friendship around performance.

You can only build it around presence.

And you can’t be present if you’re hiding.

I’ve been known to let conversations stretch. What was meant to be a 30-minute coffee often becomes a two-hour unfolding. Not because I’m trying to impress anyone, but because I’m listening—and people know it. Somewhere in the middle of their story, they realize I’m not in a rush. That they don’t have to earn their place at the table. That their story matters, even the parts they usually skip.

David Brooks says in How to Know a Person,

“The skill of being a good conversationalist is not about talking. It’s about making the other person feel seen and heard.”¹

That line wrecked me a little, because it’s what I’ve been trying to live.

You don’t need charisma to love people well. You need the kind of attention that makes room for someone to bring their full self to the table.

Brooks also writes,

“To be known is to be understood in all your complexity. To be loved is to be cared for despite that complexity. Most of us long for both.”²

And I think that’s where so many of us feel stuck.

We want to be known, but we’re afraid of what will happen when we are.

We want deep friendships, but we default to surface talk.

We ache for connection, but we keep the parts of us that are most alive behind locked doors.

So I keep asking—gently, persistently:

Are you willing to be known?

Because without that willingness, you’ll always keep a hand on the exit door of every relationship. You’ll perform instead of rest. You’ll curate instead of confess. You’ll build acquaintances instead of soul friends.

[Selah]

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This is why listening is a sacred act.

Not the performative kind, not the therapeutic kind, not the “I’m just waiting for my turn” kind. But the kind of listening that slows down the body. That opens the heart. That dares to ask a better question—and waits for the unedited answer.

When you sit with someone long enough, when you truly listen, their story starts to come into focus like an old polaroid. And if you’re paying close attention, you’ll notice the moments where something flickers—where the real person shows up and waits to be received.

And that’s your moment:

You look them in the eye.

You nod gently.

And without saying a word, your presence says:

I see you. Go on.

I’ve had the honor of sitting in those spaces.

Of holding grief that wasn’t mine.

Of hearing confessions that cracked open healing.

Of witnessing people finally telling the truth out loud.

And I’ve found that the deepest part of ministry isn’t what you preach.

It’s what you’re willing to sit with.

It’s the way you love people into courage.

Brooks calls it “illumination”—the act of helping someone else feel lit up, not by spotlight, but by dignity.

“The people who help us feel most seen are not those who interrogate or judge, but those who illuminate.”³

That’s the kind of person I want to be.

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So here’s my invitation:

Find a table this week. Maybe at a café, maybe in your kitchen, maybe on a quiet walk.

And be willing to linger.

Be willing to ask a better question.

Be willing to listen past the noise.

Be willing to be known, too.

The art of building relationship isn’t about mastery.

It’s about mystery.

It’s about attention.

It’s about love that doesn’t flinch when someone opens the door.

May we be people who listen others into the fullness of who they are.

And may we let ourselves be known along the way.

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Citations:

¹ David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen (New York: Random House, 2023), 19.

² Brooks, How to Know a Person, 3.

³ Brooks, How to Know a Person, 31.