bEING SEEN BY THE ONE WHO MATTERS MOST

​​It was the gentlest whisper... I was at a worship night with a dear friend I’d brought, knowing God wanted to lavish her with love to soothe the suffering she’d endured for years. I held her 3-month-old baby while she encountered God through the glorious praise that filled the room. 

Wrapped up in the wonder of it all, I found myself asking God for a personal touch-a word, a vision, a tangible expression of his presence. I waited in quiet hope, and that’s when I heard it—that gentlest of whispers saying thank you.
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Thank you? Was it even feasible that the Almighty, the One we were exalting in that place, would reach down and whisper words of gratitude to me? I was starting to question my theological acumen, but then I heard it again...thank you.

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Tears now flowing, I understood that God was giving me the gift of his pleasure. He knew better than anyone what it has taken for me to stay faithful through a rough season and wanted me to experience his gratitude. I still can’t quite fathom the mystery of such a thing.
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In the last two blogs I have written of God’s delight in us, something I believe ought to be a bedrock of every person’s spiritual journey. Yet having walked alongside others for decades, I know that most people find it difficult, if not impossible to believe that God’s face lights up when he sees them, that their pilgrimage with him, fraught as it might be with flaws and failures, still brings him immense joy.  

Why do we find this so hard to take in? I have shared how our stories, imprinted on our brains from childhood, create a lens through which we often  view God, making it hard to connect with how he really feels about us. Unfortunately, many of these stories have their roots in our religious upbringing, in the churches of our childhoods.
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Although I hold deep gratitude for the Baptist church where I came to know Jesus, I have spent a lot of years casting off yokes it gave me that Jesus never intended.  Simply put, the message I learned to embody was that it was all up to me. And  if it was all up to me, then it was all about me, and I knew I’d never be able to do enough or even be enough for God to approve of, much less take joy in me.   

This, I believe, is at the crux of the most egregious error churches make. Well intentioned as we may be in trying to prod believers toward faithfulness, a Christianity that focuses on our works, our efforts, our zeal or our effectiveness, denigrates the very centerpiece of our faith—the cross of Christ.

Paul faced this in dealing with Jews who were trying to coerce young Gentile believers to live up to their religious law. You can feel his frustration when he declares: “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” (Galatians 2:21)
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Do you see this? When our religious experience keeps us at the center, subtly extolling self-reliance and human effort, we nullify grace and disparage the exorbitant price Jesus paid to make us new. It becomes impossible then for us to experience God’s pleasure, caught up as we are in ourselves and how well we are getting the job done (or not).

I am not saying we have no part in our growth journey, or that there won’t be seasons of repentance or restoration when we’ve sinned and grieved our Lord. But even then, what I know is that when God looks at me, he sees a woman made perfect by his Son’s righteousness, and he loves what he sees.

The blood of Christ on Calvary covers my faults and failures, my sins and my shortcomings, and though I am ever aware of how much I still need to grow in grace, I find comfort in the reality that it is not up to me, and that it is not about me, but about the One who gave his all, the beautiful Savior who purchased me for himself and delights to call me his own.
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The miracle of grace is this; that God takes pleasure for the things that he has done in me. Then he imparts the gift of letting me experience his delight, and this makes me want to follow and serve and obey and love him even more. He smiles at this...and my joy is full. 

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