Closely coupled with my battle with shame was fear. Deep, deep fear. Fear that God was going to let me go and fear that other people did not truly love me. Shame speaks to a fear of nakedness - to being exposed, vulnerable, and unprotected. The result of that shame is fear.
In my head, I knew these things weren't true. The Bible says God loves me. My friends told me they loved me. But the fear would grip my heart and impacted how I related to God and others.
One of my big fears, as mentioned in the shame post, was that no matter how much I cried out to God, He would always view me like the Pharisees, who, in my book, seemed like a pretty hopeless case. They had all the access to the right answers, and yet they completely missed the boat. I deeply feared that. I was so afraid that God saw me, knew I had all the right answers, but saw that I kept missing the point and that I was going to meet Him one day and find out I never really knew Him.
During the fall of my senior year, I went on a retreat with InterVarsity and one of the talks there started stirring something inside me. They were talking about Luke 15: Out of one hundred sheep, one was lost in the wilderness. Out of ten coins, one was lost at home. And then they talked about the prodigal son story of the son who had wandered from his home. As they were wrapping up the talk, there was a fun moment:
"How many sheep were lost?"
We all replied with enthusiasm: "One!"
"How many coins?"
"One!"
"How many sons?"
"One!"
"Two."
There was a moment of stunned silence as that sank in. See, in the prodigal son story, we all tend to focus on the son who went away from home and got lost - the son lost in the wilderness. But in the prodigal son story, there's a second son who's lost - a son who is lost at home. We all shake our head at the second son who was too proud to join the celebrations. But the reality is that the second son was lost too - lost in focusing on all the things he did to earn his father's approval and blessings, when all those things were already available to him! ("all that is mine is yours..." Luke 15:31) However, despite the son's hardness of heart, the father went out to him. He entreated the son to come in, to join the celebrations. The father went to both sons.
Realizing that the father went to the second son too began stirring hope inside me. I had always been the good Christian kid, so I related more to the son who stayed at home, tried to do all the right things, and yet was still missing out. I was afraid that God viewed me that way too. But now I began to hope - could it be that God wanted me to draw near despite all my failings? Could it be that there was hope, even for the son who did all the right things and was still so wrong? I started noticing other passages where Jesus reached out, not just to the broken sinners, but to the people who thought they didn't need a doctor. For example, in Matthew 23, I focused on all the woes Jesus pronounced, but in verse 37, Jesus says, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!" I saw His grief, His earnest desire that they would come and be forgiven, yet they would not because their hearts were hardened. He had not written them off as hopeless cases, but was deeply burdened for them to come to Him, to be gathered into intimacy with Him.
I started to grasp something about grace, yet I was afraid it was too good to be true. I was crippled by the fear that I would swing to the other extreme - to claim grace, yet leave behind holiness and find that I was lost in sin. I was also very afraid of being self-centered. I was constantly second-guessing my actions, questioning my motives, and fearful that I was living for myself in the midst of trying to live for God (in a great twist of irony, this level of introspection had me turning inward a whole lot - the very thing I was trying to avoid!). There was so much fear.
Still, hope was growing. Could it be as I cried out "Have mercy on me, a sinner!" that God saw me as that sinner in need of mercy and comfort, and not as the Pharisee left unjustified? (Luke 18:10-14).
In the midst of my shame and fear, Zachariah 3:1-5 became one of my favorite passages:
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, O Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?" Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garment. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, "Remove the filthy garments from him." And to him he said, "Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments." And I said, "Let them put a clean turban on his head." So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the LORD was standing by.I began to realize that I felt so dirty before God. That was the filthy garments. And so the voice of the accuser came to tell me I was unclean before God. And yet, God rebuked the accuser and declared me clean! Again, there was hope, yet so much fear of breaking away from the striving. Fear that breaking away would mean falling short.
I finally came to place where I knew what was true in my head - I knew that grace was freely offered and that God loved me! Yet I could not grab hold of it in my heart. I knew I needed help, and God made it available. The first thing was getting Christian counseling. I always felt like counseling was for the weak - for people who just couldn't handle life. But when I realized how twisted up I felt inside, I knew I needed help. God began changing my ideas of counseling and I reached out to my church's counseling ministry. I began having regular meetings, working through the fears that were crippling my relationship with God. Through those conversations, I began to see the amount of pressure I was putting on myself to perform, far beyond the expectations God was putting on me. I began to see ways I struggled to set boundaries, say no, or be open with people about my weakness. I always thought I was good at being vulnerable because I was able to share about trials and how God met me in them. But then it was pointed out to me that those aren't stories of struggle - those are stories of triumph. Being vulnerable with others and getting help means being open in the midst of the trials, not afterward when I've figured it out. That was hard. But these conversations, and the "homework" assignments to process what we were discussing, seriously helped the truths that God was speaking into my heart become a reality in my life.
The other thing was taking a course on the Dynamics of Biblical Change through the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation. As I worked through this course on helping others through the process of change, it talked a lot about sin, grace, and sanctification. God helped me grow in my understanding of what sanctification is a lot through the lectures and materials. A couple of quotes really jumped out to me:
"The Christian life is like a yo-yo held in the hands of a man who is walking up stairs. There are ups and downs but, in the long haul, you are going somewhere. As time passes, the downs do not remain the same as they were in the past." (from David Powlison's seminary instructor)
"We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it; the process is not yet finished, but it is going on; this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified." (Martin Luther)These truths were starting to sink as I realized that God was transforming my life over time and that I did not have to fear unknown sin in my life. One of my counseling "homework" assignments was to find a verse to remind me of this when I started to fear what was unknown. I found Philippians 3:15, which describes pressing on for the prize of knowing Jesus. Paul writes, "Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that to you also." I realized that I did not have to constantly try to figure out what was wrong because, in His timing, God would reveal those things!
So often, I tried to handle sin by explaining it away ("I'm not complaining - I'm just stating how I feel") or by stopping it ("I am complaining, so I will repent and not do that anymore.") But God began to show me that freedom was not found in denying or stopping sinful patterns, but in recognizing them, receiving His grace, and repenting! ("I am complaining. I am proud. I am self-centered - and that is why I need a Savior! God, forgive me and help me to be more like You.")
I thought that because I was a Christian, that meant I was supposed to have it all together. But I began to see that if sanctification is a lifelong process, then I will never be perfect and so I did not need to panic over the reality that there was still sin in my life. It should not be a surprise! Instead, I could go to God, knowing He would walk through it with me, transforming me more and more into His image, and that He was not going to let me go because that was the very reason He came!
In the midst of all the noise, I was finally beginning to experience rest. To know that God was with me, He loved me, and He would pursue me even when I was sinning. And I learned something in my CCEF course that totally shifted my perspective. The lecturer was talking about things we will experience in heaven and said, "One day, we will truly be good people." I had to think about that some. A good person? One day I will truly be a good person, with no sin in my life? That thought suddenly filled me with hope! One day, the battle will be over. One day, there will no longer be a struggle with sin. One day, I will not have to repent anymore. But that day is not today, and it will not be until I see my savior face-to-face.
It made me realize: all the struggling and striving and aching for holiness is drawing me homeward. It is reminding me that the yearning for holiness, the sting of sin, the desire for perfection - these things are reminding me that I am not yet home. And so, when I feel that urge for perfection now, I look to heaven and remember: One day. One day, it is coming. But today, I walk by faith, knowing it is only by grace of God that I can draw near and that nothing I do - not before I was a Christian and not after - can take away that gift.
In that, I find rest.
Over the past year, God has been teaching me a lot about Grace. His Grace. And how free it truly is. But it took a long journey of trying to earn it for me to really get how great Grace is.
So this is my story. But it's really His story. It's the story of the God who loves. The God who came. The God who saves. And the God who transforms.
I hope to tell this story in a series of snapshots into significant moments as God began transforming my understanding of Grace, sanctification, and our identity in Him.
Soli Deo Gloria
No comments:
Post a Comment