A Bigger View of God and His Grace

I was born with a tender conscience that kicked in quickly when I blew it. Having a tender conscience was good as the discomfort of guilt I experienced often motivated me to make God-honoring decisions in my life. It also stirred in me the desire to quickly confess sin. and to apologize to others I wronged. 

However, there was also a downside to having a tender conscience. It made me prey to a few manipulators, who realized they could just poke at my conscious and get what they wanted, even when it was detrimental for me and allowed them to continue down selfish, sinful paths. It also allowed abusers to silence me, when they implicated I was responsible for their actions. It took a few years of counseling to figure out what guilt was healthy and mine to confess and what guilt I needed to let others assume and deal with themselves. 

I experienced a lot of freedom from healthy guilt when I was saved. But before I knew it, guilt began to return. Sometimes it was normal, convicting guilt that led me to confess sin. Other times it was toxic guilt that spiraled me into a pit of dark shame. Looking back, I realize the tender conscience I was born with, didn't just make me easy prey to manipulative people and abusers, it had made me easy prey for the Enemy, who used lies to turn healthy, God-given guilt into toxic shame—a type of shame that was destructive and designed to keep me stuck and afraid to turn to God when I needed Him most. 

At first, I didn't even realize the Enemy was attacking me. Then God planted us, as a young couple, in a Bible-teaching church, where I grew leaps and bounds in my faith. We had many conversations there about God and Bible doctrines that included things like the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. The more I knew about God and His holiness, the more I wanted to become like Him. Yet, the growing understanding of God's Holiness was also changing my concept of sin. I no longer viewed it as just something I did. I also saw it as things like ungodly attitudes, selfishness, sinful thoughts, and inactions. For awhile, I kept it all in balance, confessing sin and growing in my relationship with God. 

Then I found a book that a spiritual inventory in it. I don't remember what book it was or even the questions on the inventory. But it was a long one and it included a list if sins a mile long, inappropriate attitudes, a list of generational sins one might have, and a whole bunch of other stuff. I mentioned the inventory to our pastor, who suggested I bring it by his office so he could see it. So, I took it to him and as he read it, I could feel my face growing hot, imagining him seeing into the ugly garbage of my soul that I believed was listed on that list. When he finished reading it, he set it down on his desk shaking his head from side to side and quietly said, "I hate this kind of stuff" He indicated that he understood how a list like that mixed with a tender conscience could leave me reeling in shame. He also explained that he believed our God was big enough to convict us and bring to mind sin He wants confessed. He also indicated He believed our God was not a God who buried His children in shame. 

Looking back on that time, I realize a lot of us go through this as we grow in our knowledge and understanding of God's holiness and our sinfulness. When we accept Christ, we understand God's grace in the moment and are thankful Jesus' blood covers the sin of which we were aware. But, as we grow in our understanding of God's holiness, the depth of our sinfulness becomes more apparent and it's easy to buy into the lies of the Enemy as he tries to convince us God's grace isn't big enough to meet us where we are really at, that Christ's death wasn't really sufficient to cover the depths of the sin we continue to uncover, or that God's love isn't deep enough to encompass the real messy us. Oh, we would say we believe God's grace is big enough, Christ death sufficient, and God's love all-encompassing, but if we are living shamed-filled lives, isn't there a disconnect between what we say we believe and what we are living? The truth is that Jesus' death was and is and will always be sufficient enough to cover sin--what we knew in the past, what we perceive in the present, and what we will uncover in the future. 

It is not God's desire for His people to live stuck in toxic, suffocating shame. But, it is His desire that we continue to grow in the understanding of His holiness. And, as our understanding of that increases our awareness of our sinfulness, He desires our view of grace and what Christ did on the cross to expand as well. When that happens, we become believers who live loved and who are filled with humility and gratefulness instead of shame. We want to remember there is not a sin so bad Christ's blood cannot cover it. Because He loves us, God convicts us. Because he hates us, the Enemy condemns us. All we have to do to silence the Enemy is adopt a bigger view of our God and His grace.  

Suffering Well--Hope for the Homesick

When we first got married we moved to Mississippi so my husband could go to graduate school. While there we joined a church that was gifted with excellent teachers and loving friends. I felt more at home there than any place I've lived. Eight years later we moved away and I've adapted and had a lot of joyful experiences, but there has always remained a tinge of homesickness for my former church. When I read Daniel, I can't help but wonder if he experienced that same feeling I do.

Daniel and his young friends loved God and were committed to following hard after Him when King Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem and took them captive because they were among the healthiest, brightest, best looking, and wisest young men in Israel. The king commanded the men to be taken to Babylon where he changed their names, and ordered them to learn a new language and the ways of the Chaldeans.

I can't imagine being a captive and having my name changed. It would be like having someone try to wipe out my identity, my heritage, and my past experiences. Nor can I imagine what it felt like being taught about false gods and being expected to embrace them. This kind of indoctrination indicated that there wasn't plan for the young men to ever return home. It was a wise plan for a king, but a hard plan for the captives. In an effort to win the young men over, he ordered them to be housed in the palace and served from his own rich foods. But Daniel didn't want to be defiled by palace foods and requested the Jewish menu with which he has been raised. It was an important step, because the dietary laws were closely tied to worship and Daniel was subtly taking a stand and clinging to His God.

Daniel was made a ruler over a province when he interpreted a dream for the king and he placed three of his friends in leadership positions, stirring jealousy in the hearts of the locals. When the king made a statue to be worshiped, the Chaldeans  saw their chance to turn the king against Daniel's friends who refused to bow to the statue. The Chaldeans and told the king they wouldn't bow. The king became enraged and ordered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to be brought to him. He threatened to make them fuel for a hot furnace and they still refused to bow so they were bound and cast in a furnace so hot it killed the guards throwing them in. But when the king gazed into the furnace He saw four men very much alive standing in the flames. In awe, he called the men out and gave glory to God who had stood with them, forbidding anyone to speak evil of their God.

When Darius came to power, the Chaldeans saw an opportunity to get rid of Daniel. Because they had seen Daniel praying, they asked the king to forbid people to petition anyone but Darius for a period of time. Faithful Daniel did as Daniel always did. He prayed to His God and as a consequence spent the night in a lions' den. When the king returned, he found Daniel unscathed and ordered the nation to fear Daniel's God.

Daniel and his three friends faced their suffering courageously and remained faithful to God despite their captivity and mistreatment. Their faith-life was so noticeably different that it irritated some and intrigued others. The young Jews stood strong in the face of persecution. We must remember, as humans, Shadrach, Mesheck, and Abednego didn't know if they were going to be burned or saved and Daniel didn't know if he would be eaten or or protected, but they chose to remain faithful to God.

Daniel 9 shares one of Daniel's prayers. It shows where his heart is in regard to God and the long captivity he endured. I am summarizing the prayer as I want to learn from it and I believe its appropriate for our time: "O Lord, you are great and awesome! You keep your covenants and love with a steadfast love. We've sinned, acted rebelliously, and turned aside from your commandments. We've not listened to the prophets who spoke in your name. Lord, to you belongs righteousness, but to us open shame because of the treachery we've committed against you. To you belongs mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against you. Because we transgressed your law and refused to obey your voice, the curse and oath written in the Law have been poured out upon us. You confirmed your words, which you spoke against us, by bringing upon us a great calamity, yet we have not entreated your favor by turning from our iniquities and gaining insight into your truth. Because of this you have kept the calamity upon us, for you are righteous in all your works. You brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and made your name great, but we've done wickedly. Lord, according to your righteous acts, let your anger and wrath turn away from Jerusalem. Because of our sins and iniquities of our fathers. Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among those around us. Please, God, listen to my prayer for mercy, and for your own sake, Lord, make your face shine upon your sanctuary. God, incline your ear and open your eyes to see our desolation. We don't plea because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. Lord, forgive, pay attention, and act, because your city and your people are called by your name." 

There are several lessons we can learn from Daniel and his friends. When given the choice of to obey man and live or obey God and die these men chose obedience, making it clear they trusted God and His plan for them. They didn't have foreknowledge; they simply knew and trusted their God. They didn't see captivity as an abandonment by God and chose to draw near to Him during it. Daniel's prayer showed us God was faithful and true to His word. He also came to realize that captivity wasn't due to a flaw in God's character, but a sin problem with Israel who lived in open rebellion at the time. Even though Daniel was obedient and faithful, he identified with the sin of his people and he humbly confessed it to God and pleaded for mercy on their behalf. As a faithful person, Daniel didn't show a sense of entitlement and demand justice for himself, Instead, he prayed for the restoration of Israel because she bore God's name and he wanted God's name to be magnified, not mocked.

When we face hardship, the enemy wants us to believe we're abandoned by God. When we're obeying and trusting, we may believe we are entitled to a life of ease. Oh, how we often forget we live in a country where babies are daily slaughtered, where families are disconnected from each other, where sexual integrity is challenged on every front, where gain is obtained through dishonest means, where more humans beings are being trafficked than ever before, and where the church has allowed itself to be more influenced by the world than the Word. If we are honest, we will admit we live in a culture not much different than Daniel's and many people who claim to be believers have resorted to bullying, shaming, and rejecting instead of loving and sharing the gospel of grace. I want so bad for us to be "Daniels" who look at the suffering and persecution beginning to happen as an invitation to return to the heart of our great God. I would hope we let suffering humble us and that we would begin to pray fervently, not for an end to our suffering, but for the suffering to do its godly work in us, in our churches, and in our nation. Suffering is never just about us, it is about a family,communities, churches, and countries and through suffering we know God is calling His people to trust Him and display His grace as never before. Whatever God has in store for us as a nation and whatever we endure, we will be blessed if we trust Him and respond to the calling to be intercessors and faithfully confess the sins of our families, our churches, our communities, and our nations. We tend to talk about "they" instead of realizing we have a shared identity with the "they" who carry out atrocities that bring on all of our heads great shame.

Daniel's prayer showed, as aged man, he still had a heart for his original 'home" much like I do for my Mississippi home. But as ambassadors of our great King, maybe the suffering and discontentment we feel living in a Godless nation will be used to draw our hearts and minds to our heavenly home so the prayers we pray will be from an eternal perspective instead of earthly, fleshly perspective that wants easy and wants safe.  In God, there is always hope for the homesick heart! In God, there is always peace and purpose to be found in the suffering.