"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.”
In his book, Prayer, Richard Foster points out that God waits and longs to be loved. He goes on to make the bold claim that God is more tender hearted than anyone, though we do not often see him this way. And yet, how could he be less tender than the most tender human heart? Foster emphasizes how easily moved is this Tender-Hearted One, moved by our tears, and moved by our loving gestures towards him, weak as they may be. He surrounds us with tender mercies.
Foster’s reflections on the character of God caused me to consider, once again, the consequences of that fateful day in the garden, when we chose to eat from the wrong tree. I am familiar with the idea that our shame and sense of condemnation caused us to hide from God. However, this morning, I saw that there is more involved in the reason why our ancestral parents hid from God, and why we still dive for the nearest thorn bush when have missed the mark.
Having eaten from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, our eyes were opened, for the first time, to see evil. Where once we viewed God as good and loving and approachable, we now eyed him with suspicion. He is not good, kind, and tender hearted; He is mean, vengeful, and chomping at the bit for the chance to get a piece of us. Evil lies. And the most devastating lie is that God is not loving, slow to anger, and rich in mercy. God is mean. Seeing God, our source of life, as angry and vengeful causes us to flee from him, from life itself, into a lonely exile. And this, I believe, is the source of our shame. We feel ashamed because we can no longer see a loving God who see's beyond our failure and shame, so we run and hide.
This exile is not only from God. We hide from each other as well. Turn off the light, I don’t want you to see me naked! Adam and Eve lost the child-like innocence that allows us to relax in the presence of another. Having eyes newly opened to see evil, they believed the worst of each other; you will not love me in my nakedness, warts and all. Surely, you can’t be that good! Consider how different children are from their more cynical adult counterparts. Seeing only good, a child says, “I don’t have to shield and guard myself from you because I believe that you love me. I imagine no evil intent in you.“
I think of my own spiritual journey, and how, as a young believer, I lost my ability to see God. Whenever I ate from the wrong tree, (disobeyed), I would hide from God because I believed that he wanted nothing to do with me. Each time I disobeyed, I hid a little longer, beat myself up a little more. I also mistakenly believed that my self-flagellation pleased God. I could not reach for the only one who could save me, so I slid a little further, and a little further, until eventually my struggles grew from habits to bondages from which escape was no longer possible.
After a few years of struggling on my own and trying, and failing, to please God, I was angry with Him. I could no longer see Him, or even remember Him. Having taken one too many bites of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, I viewed God through those eyes. God was always against me, never for me. I was disappointed with God, loathed myself, and doubted everyone else. The knowledge of evil had fully blinded me from seeing anything good. “If love even exists, what is it?“ became my angry battle cry. I was in exile.
A break in my darkness came one morning in chapel while I was a student at Regent University. After the service had ended, I asked for prayer with the guest speaker, Mahesh Chavda. I told him that I could not seem to get close to God again. I was beginning to despair. He laid his hands on my head and prayed for me. All I can remember is that, after he finished, a volcano of pain welled up inside of my chest and into my throat, pushing for release. I knew that I had to get to thelittle prayer chapel as fast as I could, because something inside me was about to erupt. I could not get there fast enough. I was barely aware of mydear friend Rachel, trailing behind me, as I pushed my way through the crowd leaving the service to get to the chapel. There seemed to be a sea of bodies standing between me and the one place I most needed to be.
Once there, I fell onto the little red-velvet prayer bench and had a little meeting with God-the first in many years. For a brief moment of time, the veil of darkness that had shrouded my mind and heart was lifted, and I glimpsed the God that I had once loved, and lost. Rachel sat silently beside me as I sobbed into the red velvet, tears that cleansed the hardness and cynicism from a heart that had wandered too far from home. It was incredible because I had been unable to cry for many years. My heart had been stone cold, and now I was a fountain of tears.
In my mind’s eye, or spirit maybe, I was looking up towards the light of God that was streaming through a small opening in a black wall or fence. I understood that the wall was my sin, and it was blocking me from God. As I encountered the crushing beauty of God's love, for the first time in many years, I heaved great, body wrenching sobs. I felt as if I was reaching up towards him, and he for me, both of us straining for each other through the barrier that separated us. I felt that his longing for me was more than my longing for Him. In that moment, He seemed to be pleading with me;“I am not your enemy. I am not against you. I am the one who is on your side. I am pulling for you. This sin is separating you from me. This sin is against you, not me. I love you.” And something long dead awakened inside of me. I had forgotten. I had forgotten how beautiful you are God. You love me, and you are good. The lie that God was against me was starting to break; and so too, were the self-destructive habits that had bound me.
That morning in chapel was just the beginning of God restoring my soul. And on my way back home, He taught me to never, ever, hide from him. In time, I grew to trust his love. And now I will never let my sin cause me to hide from him for even a minute. And I will not let it cause me to hide from myself for even a minute (by lying to myself about myself), and I will not allow it to cause me to hide from any other person for a minute,(well, maybe a minute).In fact, quite the opposite. Now when I become aware of sin or failure it pulls me towards God. Through confession and forgiveness, my understanding of His love deepens. My heart grows more tender. He keeps loving me, and I keep needing his forgiveness. I'm a work in progress.
He knew that this journey home would be long, and messy, so he sent Jesus to mend the tear in our relationship to God. Jesus reconciled me to God, and at a great cost; why then should I hide any longer? Why should I spurn such a costly gift by allowing my sin to separate me from God? I see God a little clearer now. I see that He is indeed the most tender hearted of all, and because of who He is, we never have to hide from his loving gaze to do penance, not even for a minute. The light shined into my darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. Thank you God.
I wonder though, what would have happened if Adam and Eve could have seen the nature of God, after their slip up? We know that this is impossible, because having fallen from fellowship with God, they became blind to the truth. But if they had been able to see God, they would have seen a God who was plotting the most fantastic, irrational, redemptive act ever known to mankind. They would have seen a Father who would one day give everything that He could give, just to draw mankind back into loving relationship with Himself. They would have seen a crazy love. I believe that would have changed everything.
Maybe then, they would have come out from behind their fig leaves in that moment. Maybe they would have lifted up their weak arms and cried, “Abba, Father. Help.” And maybe Abba would have knelt down, picked them up, and gently washed them with his tears. Yes, tears. The same tears that a frightened mother cries when she finds her small child who wandered away in the crowd. Those tears. And maybe, after He had cried all of his tears, and hugged them tightly to his chest with all of his might, he would have taught them a few things about not listening to the silly little serpent.
And this is what we do, every time that we fall, every time that we slip. We look up into the merciful, loving face of our Abba Father, and He picks us up, and it it setting us all free.
In his book, Prayer, Richard Foster points out that God waits and longs to be loved. He goes on to make the bold claim that God is more tender hearted than anyone, though we do not often see him this way. And yet, how could he be less tender than the most tender human heart? Foster emphasizes how easily moved is this Tender-Hearted One, moved by our tears, and moved by our loving gestures towards him, weak as they may be. He surrounds us with tender mercies.
Foster’s reflections on the character of God caused me to consider, once again, the consequences of that fateful day in the garden, when we chose to eat from the wrong tree. I am familiar with the idea that our shame and sense of condemnation caused us to hide from God. However, this morning, I saw that there is more involved in the reason why our ancestral parents hid from God, and why we still dive for the nearest thorn bush when have missed the mark.
Having eaten from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, our eyes were opened, for the first time, to see evil. Where once we viewed God as good and loving and approachable, we now eyed him with suspicion. He is not good, kind, and tender hearted; He is mean, vengeful, and chomping at the bit for the chance to get a piece of us. Evil lies. And the most devastating lie is that God is not loving, slow to anger, and rich in mercy. God is mean. Seeing God, our source of life, as angry and vengeful causes us to flee from him, from life itself, into a lonely exile. And this, I believe, is the source of our shame. We feel ashamed because we can no longer see a loving God who see's beyond our failure and shame, so we run and hide.
This exile is not only from God. We hide from each other as well. Turn off the light, I don’t want you to see me naked! Adam and Eve lost the child-like innocence that allows us to relax in the presence of another. Having eyes newly opened to see evil, they believed the worst of each other; you will not love me in my nakedness, warts and all. Surely, you can’t be that good! Consider how different children are from their more cynical adult counterparts. Seeing only good, a child says, “I don’t have to shield and guard myself from you because I believe that you love me. I imagine no evil intent in you.“
I think of my own spiritual journey, and how, as a young believer, I lost my ability to see God. Whenever I ate from the wrong tree, (disobeyed), I would hide from God because I believed that he wanted nothing to do with me. Each time I disobeyed, I hid a little longer, beat myself up a little more. I also mistakenly believed that my self-flagellation pleased God. I could not reach for the only one who could save me, so I slid a little further, and a little further, until eventually my struggles grew from habits to bondages from which escape was no longer possible.
After a few years of struggling on my own and trying, and failing, to please God, I was angry with Him. I could no longer see Him, or even remember Him. Having taken one too many bites of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, I viewed God through those eyes. God was always against me, never for me. I was disappointed with God, loathed myself, and doubted everyone else. The knowledge of evil had fully blinded me from seeing anything good. “If love even exists, what is it?“ became my angry battle cry. I was in exile.
A break in my darkness came one morning in chapel while I was a student at Regent University. After the service had ended, I asked for prayer with the guest speaker, Mahesh Chavda. I told him that I could not seem to get close to God again. I was beginning to despair. He laid his hands on my head and prayed for me. All I can remember is that, after he finished, a volcano of pain welled up inside of my chest and into my throat, pushing for release. I knew that I had to get to thelittle prayer chapel as fast as I could, because something inside me was about to erupt. I could not get there fast enough. I was barely aware of mydear friend Rachel, trailing behind me, as I pushed my way through the crowd leaving the service to get to the chapel. There seemed to be a sea of bodies standing between me and the one place I most needed to be.
Once there, I fell onto the little red-velvet prayer bench and had a little meeting with God-the first in many years. For a brief moment of time, the veil of darkness that had shrouded my mind and heart was lifted, and I glimpsed the God that I had once loved, and lost. Rachel sat silently beside me as I sobbed into the red velvet, tears that cleansed the hardness and cynicism from a heart that had wandered too far from home. It was incredible because I had been unable to cry for many years. My heart had been stone cold, and now I was a fountain of tears.
In my mind’s eye, or spirit maybe, I was looking up towards the light of God that was streaming through a small opening in a black wall or fence. I understood that the wall was my sin, and it was blocking me from God. As I encountered the crushing beauty of God's love, for the first time in many years, I heaved great, body wrenching sobs. I felt as if I was reaching up towards him, and he for me, both of us straining for each other through the barrier that separated us. I felt that his longing for me was more than my longing for Him. In that moment, He seemed to be pleading with me;“I am not your enemy. I am not against you. I am the one who is on your side. I am pulling for you. This sin is separating you from me. This sin is against you, not me. I love you.” And something long dead awakened inside of me. I had forgotten. I had forgotten how beautiful you are God. You love me, and you are good. The lie that God was against me was starting to break; and so too, were the self-destructive habits that had bound me.
That morning in chapel was just the beginning of God restoring my soul. And on my way back home, He taught me to never, ever, hide from him. In time, I grew to trust his love. And now I will never let my sin cause me to hide from him for even a minute. And I will not let it cause me to hide from myself for even a minute (by lying to myself about myself), and I will not allow it to cause me to hide from any other person for a minute,(well, maybe a minute).In fact, quite the opposite. Now when I become aware of sin or failure it pulls me towards God. Through confession and forgiveness, my understanding of His love deepens. My heart grows more tender. He keeps loving me, and I keep needing his forgiveness. I'm a work in progress.
He knew that this journey home would be long, and messy, so he sent Jesus to mend the tear in our relationship to God. Jesus reconciled me to God, and at a great cost; why then should I hide any longer? Why should I spurn such a costly gift by allowing my sin to separate me from God? I see God a little clearer now. I see that He is indeed the most tender hearted of all, and because of who He is, we never have to hide from his loving gaze to do penance, not even for a minute. The light shined into my darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. Thank you God.
I wonder though, what would have happened if Adam and Eve could have seen the nature of God, after their slip up? We know that this is impossible, because having fallen from fellowship with God, they became blind to the truth. But if they had been able to see God, they would have seen a God who was plotting the most fantastic, irrational, redemptive act ever known to mankind. They would have seen a Father who would one day give everything that He could give, just to draw mankind back into loving relationship with Himself. They would have seen a crazy love. I believe that would have changed everything.
Maybe then, they would have come out from behind their fig leaves in that moment. Maybe they would have lifted up their weak arms and cried, “Abba, Father. Help.” And maybe Abba would have knelt down, picked them up, and gently washed them with his tears. Yes, tears. The same tears that a frightened mother cries when she finds her small child who wandered away in the crowd. Those tears. And maybe, after He had cried all of his tears, and hugged them tightly to his chest with all of his might, he would have taught them a few things about not listening to the silly little serpent.
And this is what we do, every time that we fall, every time that we slip. We look up into the merciful, loving face of our Abba Father, and He picks us up, and it it setting us all free.
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