I have a tendency to see giants in the land and sometimes fail to notice anything else. I struggle at times in relating to who I am as a child of God (my true identity). There are promises made by God for me that I often doubt their validity because they seem too good to be true. Anyone else? In my post, Confetti Temptation, I mentioned the importance of focusing on Jesus on both our good days and our bad. I decided I needed to write a bit more on that topic. Plus, writing these things out is a form of therapy, and Lord knows I need it from time to time.
Our approach to God isn’t something we typically think about, but it matters more than we might initially realize in regard to when and how we focus on Him. We base much of our approach to God on our earthly experiences with parental and spiritual leaders. The world, and the church, seems to be full of daddy issues or mommy issues and I know I’m not the only one to hear the words church hurt. I have a bit of all three and they’re hard to separate one from the other. The truth is that our parents and the church should be the safest people we have. They should be who we turn to when life becomes overwhelming and when we find ourselves in the trenches – they should also be our biggest cheerleaders. Unfortunately, there have been a lot of hurts from both parents and the church that are difficult to move on from.
I am far from perfect. I’m a parent to 5 and I miss the mark all the time. I lose my patience, I don’t always give the appropriate response, my tone is wrong most of the time, and my focus is often on the size of the giants instead of the magnitude of my God – not a very good example to my kiddos for trusting Him. But something jumped out at me recently while I was studying – we are mostly parented by imperfect, hurting people. Well, I’m far from perfect, I have hurts that are buried but very much alive, and I’m trying to parent through all of it.
As I mulled this over, trying to imagine the hurts my own parents might have experienced, I started thinking of the church. Like I stated, my hurts are a tangled mess – did I mention that I’m a preacher’s kid? In our imperfections and weaknesses, we seem to think that the church is bigger and has it all together. We say that the church is full of imperfect people, but we’re really expecting perfection from them. We expect the pastor to respond perfectly, the volunteer schedule to always be full, meal trains to never miss a need, and there’s no such thing as gossip in the church.
There are a lot of hurts that can shift our focus. Instead of being embraced and comforted when we’ve done something wrong and are expressing regret and repentance, we’re met with rejection, condemnation, and judgement – oh and don’t forget gossip. When a wrong has been done to us, something that robs us of an innocence we can never get back, we find that we’re met with the same rejection, condemnation, and judgement – oh, and did I mention gossip? This kind of response – not always – but quite often comes from both our parents and the church!
Parental hurt. Church Hurt. There are a lot of hurts.
Because of the imperfect responses we receive, acted out by imperfect people who are trying to parent and/or minister through fallen understandings and their own past hurts, we tend to think God responds to us the same way. That kind of response wouldn’t have me wanting to run to God for anything. The way we approach God is often based on our experiences of approaching our parents and the church. It’s no wonder many people limit their church attendance to the holidays and prayers to big family get-togethers. I may have just stepped on some toes…
I grew up believing that I’m saved by grace through faith, but we have to make sure we stay in line because God will deal out punishments when – not if – we mess up. I also never knew if I could trust Him or not – what if it’s His will for me to get cancer, suffer, and die? What if it’s His will for tragedy to strike my family? I grew up being told that we can never know God’s will and I’ve repeatedly heard that it wasn’t always God’s will to heal His children. These teachings will directly affect how we approach God… or why approach Him at all?
Have you tried to focus on God in the midst of your storm and found that you’re trying, but you’re riddled with fear and doubt? Perhaps you were taught that God loves you, but He’s also angry with you… or the storm you’re in was sent by God to teach you something. When you’re a Christian and constantly reminded that you’re not good enough and you need to be in order to approach God, why try?
I can trace one specific shift in my focus to the early years of my marriage. We had experienced multiple miscarriages back-to-back, and I was feeling more than a little lost. Maybe everything I grew up hearing from the pulpit and in my family had been true… maybe He does punish us for current and past sins. Maybe God is someone I can only count on to be just like the world… Then I read what has become one of my favorite passages in the entire Bible.
“Just as I swore in the time of Noah that I would never again let a flood cover the earth, so now I swear that I will never again be angry and punish you. For the mountains may move and the hills disappear, but even then my faithful love for you will remain. My covenant of blessing will never be broken,” says the Lord, who has mercy on you. Isaiah 54:9-10 NLT
These words were a soothing balm to my wounded heart. They don’t speak of a God who will bless you in one breath and punish you in the next. He will never again be angry and punish you! What about when I mess up? What if I mess up and it’s premeditated? His faithful love will remain. His covenant of blessing will never be broken – not because we deserve it based on our own merit, but because the Lord has mercy on us.
When we see God full of wrath and anger for what has already been dealt with, it will mess with our approach – and might even be a determining factor for whether we approach Him at all. If we don’t feel as though we can safely approach Him, why would we focus on Him instead of our giants? Why would we look to Him in the midst of our storm if we are accusing Him of bringing it upon us?
I’m going to spend a few weeks unwrapping some of the lies we’ve picked up regarding who God is. Maybe once we have a better understanding of Him and His intentions toward us, we might be able to run to Him when things seem to fall apart. Maybe we can finally see that the safest place is in the arms of our Father.
What things have you heard – good or bad, truth or fiction – that have changed or shaped your approach to God? Do you struggle to focus on Him when the giants are stomping through your land? I would love to hear from you – leave a comment or send an email to ohblessitgrace@gmail.com.