Seeing as HE Sees

Luke 15:11-32

This is one of my favorite parables, and as I continue with the #LentChallenge, I'm still thinking about Luke 15 because, in various seasons, I have been the lost daughter and the jealous daughter. This is, in most Bibles, the parable of the lost son, but like the two parables in Luke 15 that precede it (the lost sheep and the lost coin), I feel this parable says far more about the Father's heart than that which was lost.

1) Sometimes our Father initiates the search for us, and sometimes, He is waiting for our return, but always, He meets us; always, He is filled with compassion. 

This view of our Father--especially depending on how you view your earthly mother and father--is not normal, if normal is defined by earthly standards. A child who rebels, who is wasteful, who squanders, who avoids, who willfully and intentionally goes his own way: that, by any parenting standard, is cause for discipline and reproach.

The response we might expect is anger, silence, crossed arms, a tapping foot, and the words we fear most, "Son, I'm disappointed."

But not our Heavenly Father: "While he was still a great ways off, the father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him."

Even when we are in the midst of bad choices, even when we are ashamed and self-loathing, even before we open our mouths to repent, our father sees, and has compassion, and runs to us, and falls on us, and kisses us.

I'm not downplaying sin, rebellion, or repentance, but too often, our worldly view gets crossed with our spiritual view, and we forget that it's the Lord's kindness, His mercy, His love, that leads us to repentance. 

It's not our shame. It's not our unworthiness. It's not about how low must I get to be forgiven.

It's about Him, and His heart, and His compassion.

He meets us. He pursues us.

2) Even in our sin, He still desires to reaffirm us as sons and daughters, to confirm in us how HE sees us. 

The jealous one--ever been her? When you're just serving and obeying and doing all that your Dad asks you to do, but yet someone else gets acknowledged, gets rewarded, gets that blessing you really feel you deserve?

What does the Father do? He pursues: "But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore, his father came out and pleaded with him."

Therefore. HIS father. His father CAME. His father came and PLEADED.

So much could be said about that one sentence. He didn't scold. He didn't tell him to grow up, to be self-less, to be mature, or to get over it.

He says, "Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours."

What an affirmation! What a declaration! What a promise!

Son. Daughter.

He calls us by name; He calls us HIS, even in the midst of our jealous fit.

He offers the promise of His presence. We are with Him. He is with us.

He offers the promise of sufficiency. "All I have is yours." You have enough because I am enough.

Grace, that unmerited, unearned favor. Grace, that supernatural power and ability. Grace, His total and utter sufficiency accomplished in me by faith because of the finished work of the cross. 

Because He is enough, I am enough in Him. 

Because He is sufficient, I am lacking nothing in Him. 

Our Father wants to know us, and more than that, He wants to be known by us: that we would really see His heart, not the reaction we expect to find, not expecting the punishment we deserve, but with opened eyes to see all that He's done, out of His great love and grace and mercy. 

Jesus died. And God's wrath was satisfied. And the punishment for our sin was satisfied. It is finished. 

And when we believe--when we put our faith in what the cross accomplished, the finished work of Jesus Christ--then we are not only transformed from death to life, from lost to found, but with unveiled eyes, we get to behold Him--to really see Him, our Heavenly Father. 

He is all good. He is all grace. 

He runs to us. He meets us. He pleads with us. And above all, He wants us to see ourselves how He sees us. 

Daughter, I am with you. Daughter, you are mine. Daughter, you have enough. Daughter, you lack nothing.

Desiring Mercy and Not Sacrifice

“Go and learn what this means, for I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” Matthew 9:13

“But if only you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” Matthew 12:9

The Pharisees couldn’t get what Jesus was saying—first to “go and learn” and later “if only you had known.” With all their knowledge of scripture, with all their rules, with all their duty and obedience, and with—in their mind—their righteousness, they could not understand this truth. Jesus’ words did not compute with their tradition.

Sometimes, if we’re not careful, we can have the same tendency to desire sacrifice more than mercy. What does this mean? As I’ve said elsewhere, we are bent on works because it’s more natural. It’s more natural to do than to be.

As long as I’ve been saved, I’ve loved the Word of God. I’m highly analytical and can spend hours reading scripture and commentary and translations and the original Greek or Hebrew meanings. But, as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 8:1, “knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.”

Knowledge without mercy is a dangerous state.

To know scripture is important, but before we can receive fully, before we can fall in love with God’s word, we have to first fall in love with its author. When we are so filled by the love of God, His love and grace becomes a lens through which we can read and receive His word.

Here Jesus is quoting Hosea 6:6. The full verse is this: “For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”

The knowledge of God is not mutually exclusive to mercy. And while He desires mercy not sacrifice, He desires knowledge more than burnt offerings. Under the Old Testament covenant, God is not negating or replacing what must be done for atonement. We know from Romans 3 that in His forbearance, He passed over their sins, yes, but their account was not settled.

So why does Jesus not quote—in both places here—the full verse from Hosea? Is it because knowledge of God is no longer important? Of course not. The problem is the Pharisees had all the knowledge in the world.

But under the new covenant, we get to know God in a different way. Because of the finished work of the cross, we have a mediator, who is Jesus, and we have the Holy Spirit. And that revelation—when we believe in what the cross accomplished—that changes how we know God. We, with unveiled faces, get to behold Him. And it transforms us.

I’m doing the 40 day reading challenge, reading through the New Testament for 40 days of Lent, but my heart must be bent on loving God and discovering Him in His Word. When it becomes doing or duty or an item to be checked off, then I’ve lost sight of what it means to desire mercy and not sacrifice.

Lent: Not Giving Up but Giving More

Lent is about giving up, about sacrifice—and as one who tends to love duty, as one who craves to do lists and tasks to obey, I secretly love self-discipline and the rewarded feeling at the end of 40 days when I've accomplished my "task," whatever it is I've chosen to give up: “Yep, I still got it.”

This year, as many of my friends begin thinking of what to fast, what to give up, I feel God gently whispering: don’t give up, give more—more of your time, more of your energy, more of yourself to me and to others.

Don’t give up TV or soft drinks, give up your life for me.

If Lent is about preparing our hearts for Easter, about reflecting on the great exchange: my guilt, my sins, my shame—my ashes for His beauty, then may the next 40 days, for me, be about reflecting on Him: on who He is and what He did and who I get to be when I’m hidden in Christ, when I’m made righteous, when the work of the cross is finished—really finished—and I get to be made whole, complete, perfect, lacking nothing.

Not because I’m those things, but because He loves me so; He loves me so much; He loves me so much that He gave.

And if I’m to give anything these 40 days, let me give of myself fully.

I’ve read some blogs today promoting Margret Feinberg’s 40 day reading challenge, and although (if I’m honest), I get excited when I see little check boxes (That feels like a “to do” list for me to accomplish! Yes!), I have decided to focus these 40 days on the New Testament, as Feinberg encourages—not as something to do, but something to reflect: the story of the cross, of redemption, of the great exchange.

If you’re interested in joining me, you can read more here or print the reading plan here.

May the challenge for me—and perhaps for you, too—not be about legalism or about what I can accomplish with the right motivation and all the wrong motives; may these 40 days be about pouring out all of me and pouring in more of Him. 

The closing of a chapter and the beginning of something new

Our journey with fertility, at least for the foreseeable future, has come to an end. And as we close a very long chapter in our lives, my heart is filled with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I feel relieved to be free from the stress and demand and expense and hormones of fertility treatments. No more mixing shots to give to myself. No more pills to manipulate my hormones. No more painful procedures. No more rollercoasters. In many ways, I have been defined, confined, and consumed by fertility—or rather infertility. And I get to lay that down. I’m free.

On the other hand, I’m laying down very real hopes and expectations that we’ll ever get pregnant. It’s possible that God could surprise us down the road. I pray consistently—and have for years—that He would heal my body. I fully believe He can. And maybe in His time, He will.

But it’s also possible that He won’t. Not because He can’t, but because He has a different plan. People like to say things like, “I bet you’ll adopt, and then you’ll get pregnant.” Or “I’m sure it’ll happen when you least expect it.” Well, maybe. Certainly I’m up for any surprises God wants to give us. But maybe not. I have two aunts who never had babies from their womb, but who cherished and loved and parented their children. People like to tell the stories of so-and-so who waited X years or who after adopting Z times, had a baby. But my aunts’ stories are real, too, and no less valuable.

This struck me most this week, when a friend of ours—who after 7 years of trying to get pregnant has adopted a baby—said to me, “I wish I hadn’t spent those 7 years agonizing and worrying over whether or not we were pregnant. Because now, holding my baby, he is mine, and I realize God never intended for us to get pregnant. That was never His plan. THIS is His plan, and it’s perfect.”

Wow.

So, as I finish this chapter, I want to reflect on a few things I’ve learned. For anyone reading this who is struggling on this journey, I hope you’ll be encouraged:

1. God really is a good Daddy, and He withholds no good thing from His children. If you’re not able to get pregnant (now or ever), God is not punishing you. Fight that lie with the truth that He loves you, and out of His love for us, He gives good gifts.

2. Everyone’s journey is unique. Our deepest desire is to be known and understood, and even on the journey of infertility, there’s no pattern or script. Some women may have a child or multiple children and now find themselves infertile. Some women may get pregnant, but miscarry multiple times. And some women, like me, may never know what that “plus sign” feels like. And whether you’ve been trying for 6 months or 6 years, whether you have one child or none, whether you’re 35 or 25, your journey is no less difficult or painful—and neither is someone else’s. Our hope is in the truth that He deeply understands us and our own unique experience. He is El Roi—the God who sees, and He knows our story personally.

3. People mean well, even when their answers seem pat or trite. Women like to encourage. We do this on all levels. When we’re married, we tell our single friends to just wait and God’s best is coming—like we know what their journey will be. We tell them they have to be completely content to be single, then God will bring their spouse. And we like to give these success stories of ourselves and others who waited X years but found the perfect someone. And so, in that same vein, women—especially mothers—like to tell trying-but-not-pregnant women to just relax, to just wait on God’s timing, and to just be patient.These pat answers used to make me angry—because, again, I felt misunderstood. But here’s what I’ve learned: people really do have good intentions. And even though just saying, “I’m sorry” or “That’s hard” could go a long way, people—normally mothers—don’t know what to say to us, the trying-but-not-pregnant. But the motive is almost always to encourage and uplift. So receive it as truth, or let it go, but don’t be offended. It’s not worth it.

4. Be grateful. This is a command to myself and a charge to anyone on this journey. Be grateful for your spouse; be grateful for your life. Be grateful for any good thing you have. On this journey, it’s easy to be consumed by the negative—the prayers unanswered, the hope deferred, so be intentional to find the good gifts in your life for which you can be grateful.

5. And finally, it’s not my fault. And it’s not yours either. This has been the hardest lesson for me personally, and I am finally free from the guilt and self-blame I have carried all these years. For some couples, it’s both the man and the woman who have fertility issues—and again, everyone’s situation is unique. I used to secretly wish that was our case because Howell was perfectly healthy, and I had all the diagnoses and “issues.” As a result, I carried all the blame. And although Howell never once blamed me—and has, in fact, tried repeatedly to reassure me of the opposite, I always felt responsible, like it’s on me to create this miracle of life! 

But I have learned to battle those lies with His truth—that grace is really in spite of me and not because of me, that His love is great and gives and is unconditional; it’s not based on me or my performance at all, and that my job is only to believe and trust—not do. Because of the finished work of the cross, because I put my faith in what Jesus accomplished in that, I am whole, complete, perfect, lacking nothing. He bore my guilt, my shame, my punishment—and I get life instead.

If that’s a struggle for you—to blame yourself—I encourage you to really release that guilt and let God fill your ears with His truth of your identity in Him.

For three years, this has been my journey and my identity. Infertility has defined me. But it doesn’t, and it won’t, as we go forward. I want to walk in the fullness of all that He has for me, and I want to see myself as He sees me. Not being a mother—especially when it seems most of the people in my life are mothers or soon-to-be mothers—has made me feel inadequate or like I am not enough; I have nothing to contribute. But that’s a lie; that’s not walking in my true identity as whole, complete, lacking nothing. May this new chapter be about letting God—not infertility—define me as I step into the fullness of all that He is calling us to do.

So my heart is expectant as we begin a new chapter. We have cried and grieved, but we are excited to live the life God has for us today. I don’t want to spend 4 more years agonizing over the plan God has for us. I want to walk in the fullness of His plan today. We don’t have children yet—that’s simply a fact. So what does God want us to do now, how does He want to use us in this season of life—before we have kids? That’s the journey I want to embrace!

Part 2 of Lessons in Grace: Car Repair Adventures

The theme for part 1 was that grace ≠ merit and that our very culture, my deepest ingrained ideologies, is a deterrent to fully walking in grace, to living by and receiving freely God’s grace every day. Our culture says that we work to receive, that you can’t or shouldn’t receive something for nothing, and so pride and self-sufficiency is our great hindrance to grace, which freely gives what is so undeserved, which freely gives in no regard, whatsoever, to our merit or demerit.

Sure, we can admit our needs when we are desperate—as I was desperate that day I stood in the middle of 5th street in the cold with a police officer blocking traffic while we wait for a tow truck to pick up the pieces and the tire and the three-wheeled 4Runner sitting lopsided. Of course, I was desperate then.

The problem is that because we are our own hindrance to grace—by living and operating based on earthly cultural values—when we get desperate enough, when we truly need God because we just. cant. do. it., even then we pick up a different hindrance to grace: entitlement.

I’ve written about this entitlement thing before, but I feel like I see it in two different ways now. The first is when we begin mentally checking our magical piggy bank to see if we have stored up enough credits (enough merits) to ask our wish-granting God if He will hear us. When we are desperate, we are all-the-more demanding.

And this goes two ways, too (back to work-therefore-entitlement): either we say, but I’ve done this and this and this, so can’t You just do this one thing to get me out of my desperate bind? Or, we say (as I did), well, my sin is so great this week, my piggy bank is pretty depleted; I guess I’ll just take my consequence now.

All of this is a very wrong and very limiting understanding of grace.

So, part 2 picks up the second half of our second cultural hindrance: entitlement. And I’ve already said entitlement is related to our sense of works (I worked; therefore, I am entitled). But there’s another kind of entitlement game, and I play it a lot. It’s called the game of justice: what is right and fair.

I’ve been reading through a Bible study written by Paige Allen, and toward the end she talks about the verse in Micah to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. And she comments that she sometimes loves justice more than she loves mercy.

Me too.

Blame it on my personality—that I’m so black-and-white, but I have a very strong sense of justice and fairness, of right and wrong. And it’s not always just for me—it’s for others who often face great injustices that make me so angry I cry out, But why God? It’s so unfair!

Before you think I’m only selflessly carrying the justice torch for others, let me tell you, I carry my own torch really high. Most people like to get the fair deal and to be right, but I really like it. In fact, the greatest issue I have had to work through in our marriage is this very thing: marriage is about compromise, about humility and selflessness; it’s not about being right or “winning.” (If you’re a newlywed, and you’re bull-headed like me, put that on your mirror. When I let go of the need to “win,” it changed our marriage forever.) Okay—soap box over.

Here’s the deal, though, I still very much like to be right—and more than that, it’s hard for me to get over what I think is unfair.

Example: $3,000 worth of damage (a conservative estimate), and we likely aren’t responsible for any of it.

So, enter again, Day 8 of the lessons-from-my-car-repairs: I’m reading about the parable of the rich landowner, the one who gives a very fair pay to the laborers who worked all day and a very generous and equal (but unfair) pay to the laborers who only worked an hour.

Jerry Bridges in Transforming Grace puts the parable in a modern perspective: a class of students who take an exam. Some studied very hard and earned an A; others did not study at all and deserved an F, but the professor gives everyone an A—both earned and undeserved.

If you know me, you know I was highly concerned with grades in college and grad school, particularly. So, as a student, this makes something inside me go, Ahhhhhhh!!!!! As a professor, I think Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Either way, my heart cries out—but that’s not right…it’s not fair!

And yet the landowner says, “Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (Matthew 20:13-15).

God is indeed very generous; it’s in His inherit nature to give. But when we feel entitled to receive, we lose sight of His generosity.

Bridges writes, “But for Christians, such a high sense of entitlement is especially detrimental to our spiritual lives. For one thing, God is the ultimate supplier of all our needs and desires. Every good gift is from Him, regardless of the intermediate means through which it is supplied… If we do not receive what we think we have a right to expect, it is ultimately God who has withheld” (p. 65).

The bottom line is this: “None of us wants to get what we actually deserve” (p. 69).

God doesn’t owe us anything. And any gift He has given us is by His grace, His inherit generosity—to give what is undeserved.

Through Jesus, I am made righteous; through Jesus, I can do anything; through Jesus, I am more than a conqueror. But when I begin to think it’s really me that’s so great and awesome: I am not. Apart from Jesus, I am nothing. I have nothing without His generosity. And I can never give Him anything He hasn’t already given me.

So I began to pray last week that God would pierce my heart with this truth. I don’t deserve to have my car fixed on my time table; I don’t deserve to pay nothing. It’s not my right nor is it justice.

It’s only grace to get what we don’t deserve, but if we think we deserve it, then we miss the gift—we miss grace.

If you’ve made it this far and are, at this point, really only interested to know what happened, here it is: By God’s grace, the service manager took most of the weight of the repairs, and we paid less than 10% of what those repairs should have cost—and by His grace upon grace, our initial estimated cost was even lower when we picked up the car on Wednesday.

Did we deserve it? Nope. Not at all. But we have a generous Father who gives gifts of grace upon grace, and when our heart releases our culture and ideologies, we see and receive His grace everywhere.