Ministry of Reconciliation

Tomorrow I am supposed to lead the content portion at my house church.  In order to prepare, I woke up this morning and listened to the Celebration talk from last week that I missed.

Mike Billingsly spoke about the ministry of reconciliation, which he drew from the story in the Bible about the unforgiving servant. It was really awesome, and some of the points that he made really struck me, so I am going to go through that parable and kind of re-process via this blog. Click here if you're interested in listening to Mike's talk.

So, let’s start with the setting: Peter has just asked Jesus how often he should forgive, and Jesus tells this story:

A Master calls in one of his servants who owes him an insurmountable debt of 10 thousand talents (1 talent=180 months wages. It’s a huge amount). The servant cannot pay, so the Master orders him and his family to be sold into slavery to settle the debt. When the servant hears this he falls to his knees and begs for more time so that he can repay his master. The master is moved to compassion and releases him, forgiving the servant of the entire debt. The servant leaves, and goes to find another servant who owes him a much smaller debt, and demands that he pay it. The other servant falls to his knees and begs for more time. The unmerciful servant refuses him, and has him taken to debtor’s prison until he can repay him. When the other servants see this, they tell the Master, who is furious and calls in the unmerciful servant. He asks him how he can do this thing, when he has just been forgiven of so much, and tells him that he should have forgiven the other servant as he has been forgiven. The Master then has the unmerciful servant delivered to the jailors/torturers (depending on what version you read) until the debt can be repaid.  

Jesus ends the story by telling Peter that this is what the Father will do to every one of us, if we do not forgive our brothers from our heart.

I mean, holy crap. That’s intense and it’s a little bit scary and it’s just very convicting.

My first reaction to this is just, wow. The Lord has forgiven me of so much. It’s not logical how much He has forgiven me. It makes absolutely no sense, because I am used to seeing forgiveness as an idea and seeing reconciliation as something people earn. Generally, when I feel like I have been wronged I will say that I “forgive” that person (and will really think I have), but I am rarely reconciled to them because after being hurt it seems to make more sense to “forgive” them, but to then keep them at arm’s length because I feel they have proven themselves untrustworthy.

But that is not the way that I have been forgiven. The Lord tells us that he has washed us clean. That he moves our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. That He chooses to wipe those things from his mind. To forget them. To always welcome us back into his arms. No matter what. Forever. And if I believe that we are called to be completely obedient to the Lord (which I do) then I am clearly in the wrong.
There is no room for me, as a believer, to hide behind walls when it comes to forgiving my brothers and sisters. It is my responsibility and calling to always forgive, and to always see the ways that the Father can transform people and situations and my own heart. To always choose reconciliation over a sense of justified bitterness or anger.

My second reaction to reading this was to wonder: How often has my incapability of accepting forgiveness from the Father for my own debts rendered me incapable of forgiving others? That is the thing that caused the Master in the parable to be angry. He was owed something huge by his servant. He had him there at his mercy, and was totally justified in his decision to sell the servant off to settle the debts, and chose to forgive the servant instead. But the servant couldn’t accept it. He could not accept something that big. Maybe he couldn’t accept the Master’s forgiveness because he couldn’t forgive himself.

I think in our society the servant's attitude would generally be considered pretty great. At least personally, I grew up in a family that was pretty big on the idea that handouts are not ok to take. You work hard to earn what you receive and if you owe someone something, you figure out a way to pay them back. Now, that is generally probably a really good way of thinking about things, but not when the person you owe is the Lord.

The servant was right in seeing how huge this thing the Master was forgiving him for was. It was huge, and it should have a powerful impact on his life. The master was offering him a release. He was offering him freedom instead of slavery. He was offering to take the burden of debt and fear off of the servant’s shoulders. He was giving the servant freedom and forgiveness freely and in compassion. All the servant had to do was accept it, and continue on in his life, emulating what the Masters actions had taught him. But he couldn’t seem to do it. It was too big, this gift. He couldn’t just take it without trying to give the Master something in return.

I don’t think the servant was a horrible individual who left the master and decided to go bully someone for fun. I think he must have panicked. Because it’s scary to understand the amount of love and compassion behind the forgiveness of a debt that big. It strips us of our defenses and leaves us vulnerable. I think most of us have this inner reaction to that type of forgiveness that has a foundation in a lot of self-loathing or self-disgust. Almost like in response to forgiveness, we have to do something to prove that we are really worth it. We are really worth the cost. As if our Father didn’t already know, and didn’t already have an unconditional love for us.

I think that response (the wrong one) was exactly what the servant experienced in response to such forgiveness. He panicked, and even though he had been forgiven, he couldn’t accept it. He had to figure out some way to pay the master back and so went to try to collect all the smaller, more manageable debts that were owed to him so that he could give them to the Master. As a way to show him that even though the Master forgave him, the Master was still going to get something out of it.

He was working out of his own strength instead of accepting the Masters gift freely, and giving himself to the Master for the Master to further use as a good and faithful servant, as he should have done.

I have been in that place so often. That place where I know I have done something wrong, and I feel just terrible, and I may have asked the Lord for forgiveness, but am so angry with myself, that I can’t seem to really accept it. I will feel the Lord calling to me and asking me to draw near to him and to spend time with Him, because he has already chosen to forget my sin. But I haven’t been able to forget my sin. So instead of drawing close to the Father and trusting in His never ending love and grace, I will ignore him and go out and try to do something to make me feel like I actually deserve his grace. And when I feel more deserving I will go to him. Thus completely missing the point and cheating myself of learning what real forgiveness means and feels like.

I think that the best way of learning to accept his forgiveness, and reconcile with Him when we’ve done wrong, and with others, when we feel that we have been wronged, kind of ties into the idea of speaking life into dry bones. Speaking who He tells us we are over ourselves, even though it may not be true at that time. And speaking hope and love over situations where we feel no hope, and no love. I think that doing that in faith has the power to transform situations, and it makes room in our hearts to see things the way He sees things and to have the heart response that He has.

And that’s kind of the point, right? To be transformed into his likeness more and more throughout our lives.

Valley of Dry Bones

Ezekiel 37

I know absolutely nothing about Ezekiel (other than it appears that he is a super intense prophet). With that said, I'm going to write about it as if I do, because I think that this story is pretty incredible.

Setting: The Lord has come upon Ezekiel and takes him out into the middle of a desert valley that is filled with dry bones. The Lord asks Ezekiel if he thinks that the bones can live, to which Ezekiel responds that only the Lord can know that. In response, the Lord commands Ezekiel to prophesy over the bones and tell them that the Lord is going to enter them and bring them to life. Ezekiel (who I imagine would be just freaking out) does as the Lord commands, and as he obeys, the bones begin to reassemble with a great rattling sound. Ezekiel looks on as they are re-animated into human form, back into human bodies, though they have no breath. The Lord then commands Ezekiel to prophesy "to the breath" and prophesy to the bodies that breath will re-enter them. Ezekiel obeys, and of course, the Lord causes the breath to enter what is now a vast host of warriors.

Dry bones to an army of warriors.

The Lord's response to Ezekiel at this point is this:

"Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Isreal. They say, 'our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.' Therefore prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Isreal. Then you, my people will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it,' declares the Lord." 11-14

It is in the Lord's good pleasure to take things that are past broken-- things that are dead. Things that we would have completely given up on. Things that we have completely relinquished any form of hope that they can be restored, let alone can be made to thrive, and through his power, not only reasemble those things, but to bring them fully to life. To give the strength. To create them into an "army."

I think that not only does the Lord want to restore us in areas that we have previously had victory in, I think he also wants to restore us in areas that we have always failed at. It is not the Lord's will that we be enslaved by areas in our lives that are like those dry bones. Depression, addiction, anger, impurity. These are things that the Lord would release us from and make us masters of. So that He can display His awesome power in our lives.

The other thing that struck me is how integral Ezekiel's obedience to the Lord is to the army being made alive. I think it's obvious that God didn't need Ezekiel, but he did make him an important part of the process. That leads me to think that maybe the Lord longs for completely obedient hearts to the point that He will delay until our hearts are ready to submit to Him.

I long for transformation in my life in so many areas.  I have a lot of things that need to be worked on. But how often do I only have a halfway obedient heart? How often am I asking God to bring things to life in me without really giving him a submitted heart? And then when He delays, how often do I respond with frustration, or a lack of faith that He even cares about helping me?

On a different note, I'm trying to figure out what these stories reveal to me about God's heart. The first thing this made me think of is pure, awesome power. The second is a deep compassion for his children.

He actually looks at areas of lack within someone's life and speaks fullfillment over those areas. There is such power in that, and understanding that action reveals to us something within the Lord's heart.

Romans 4: 17 describes God as one "...who give life to the dead and calls those things that are not as though they are." There is something in that that deeply resonates within me. It makes it sound like the Lord looks at us. He sees our imperfections, our areas of weakness, and instead of just improving us to the point of not being an embarrasment, or to the point where we aren't so weak that we're dragging people down, He actually looks at those specific weaknesses and speaks the opposite over them. Because that is the Father's heart for us. To lead us to a place of rich abundance in areas of our lives where we struggle to keep our heads above water. He loves us too much to be satisfied with areas of "dryness" in our hearts. If we let Him, He will take a desert and turn it into a garden.

To me, this means that when I invite the Lord to come and look at the state of my heart and He sees a heart that struggles with anger, He doesn't say "Wulp, this is always going to be an issue. Let's just fix this so that it won't hold up anything else, and then go focus on something a little more realistic." I think that He looks at me and says "I see a heart that can love unconditionally and forgive without qualifications. I see a heart that is capable of being a vessel to pour out My lovingkindness on those that surround it. I see a heart full of a lifegiving joy untouched by bitterness and hate. I see a heart capable of holding so much love and compassion and understanding for others that it will draw people in. And I will not stop until what I see comes to pass."

What is more disarming than that? Or more hopeful?

If our God is for us, then what can stand against us?

"Beloved"

I have decided to start a blog, and just to give anyone who bothers to read it a heads up, it’s probably going to be badly written, not very funny/witty, and probably kind of weird.

I’m considering this an exercise in transparency, vulnerability, risk, and obedience. It’s going to be pretty hard to explain why I feel the need to do that, so I’m not going to try. I’m just going to start writing down some of my deepest and most private thoughts, and hopefully, the more I do it, the less awkward it will feel to have said thoughts floating about the internet.

So. Let us begin.

Due to a conversation with the beautiful and wise Marybeth Omido on Saturday, my mind has been pretty consumed with a certain chain of events in the Song of Solomon, which is a book in the Bible about the love, courtship, and marriage of a man and woman who represent Christ and His church. The man is called the “Lover” and the woman is referred to as the “Beloved.”

In the Song of Solomon, at one point the Lover asks his Beloved to come with him out into the mountains, ("Arise, come, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me" 2:13)  but it appears as though she refuses to go. He departs, and she is without him.

As a result of choosing to not go away with him, she is completely unsatisfied. Her heart has a deep longing for him, and she knows that her life will not feel fulfilled until he returns to her, and she has a chance to say yes to him.

" All night long on my bed I looked for the one my heart loves; I looked for him but did not find him. I will get up now and go about the city, through its streets and squares; I will search for the one my heart loves. So I looked for him but did not find him." 3:1-2

Later on, he comes back, and asks his beloved a second time to come away with him into the mountains to be with him. This time she chooses correctly. She says yes to him and retreats with him for a season of deep intimacy and love. During this season the Lover and the Beloved seriously pour out the love on each other. They explain all of the reasons that they are intoxicated with each other, why there is no one that can satisfy their hearts the way that the other one can. In this season nothing is hidden from the other. Their love reaches new depths and they become one. (chapter 4)

Soon, the pair returns, and next something strange happens. The Lover departs. He leaves his Beloved alone and is not by her side.

"I opened for my lover, but my lover had left; he was gone. My heart sank at his departure. I looked for him but he did not answer..."  5:6

 This time, the Beloved has a choice. She can either choose to believe that her Lover is not who she thought he was—that he is actually cruel, and unkind and callous. That everything she learned about him during their entire relationship was a façade covering up who he really is. That she means little to him, and so she will reject him as he has rejected her. She can choose to believe that she is not worth his love. That she is unlovely, and of little value.

The beauty in this story that struck me and that has in a way haunted me all weekend is what the Beloved does. If I was in that situation, I would reject the Lover and feel completely justified in doing so. I would ignore what I thought I knew about him, and choose to believe the worst. But that is not what the Beloved does. She has such deep conviction in his love for her, that not even his unexplained departure can shake her assurance in the depth and goodness of his love.

"O daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you-- if you find my lover, what will you tell him? Tell him I am faint with love." 5:8

When her friends ask her why she loves the Lover, she immediately lists off several things about him (5:10-16), things that she loves about him even in the midst of a separation that he has initiated without explanation. She is left to faithfully trust in what he has revealed to her about his heart, even though circumstances would tempt her to believe otherwise. The seasons of intimacy and love they have previously shared have connected her heart so deeply to his that even when circumstances would make it seem as though he has cast her aside, she abides in what her heart knows to be true about him and the way that he loves her.

I must confess that these past several months I have found myself in the same place that the Beloved is in when the Lover leaves her. But, unlike the Beloved, I have chosen wrong. I have allowed my seasons of separation to foster feelings of hurt and distrust towards the Lord. I have chosen wrong, but our God is gracious and He has shifted my perspective to show me the truth of who He is and where He is when He doesn’t draw near to me when I’m asking Him to.

I think it’s an important lesson to learn how to praise God for giving us the chance to be faithful and loyal to him when we feel like the abandoned Beloved. To learn to say to him “Yes, I know you. I know your heart and I know who you are. I know that you are overflowing with love for me, and even if I can’t see you and feel you in this moment/day/week/month/year, I trust that you have chosen me, and will return to me soon, full of compassion and grace and love for me. I will choose to trust You. I will choose to be satisfied in you and only you. I will choose to wait on you patiently, with a soft and tender heart full of trust and obedience.”

I wonder if the Lover withdraws in this way because he has a heart that longs to be pursued by his Beloved in the same way that we, as his Beloved, long to be pursued by him? I wonder if his heart longs for us to be faithful to him in times of trouble, the same way that I know we long for him to faithfully stand by us when we are faced with hardship?

I think that for our entire lives, we will feel this “separation” from the Lord (in various degrees, for various lengths of time) as part of a pattern. And I don’t believe that is because we serve a careless God who forgets about us. I think it is because He is giving us opportunities to grow in faithfulness and in love for Him. Because in my opinion, our reason for existence is to give honor and glory to our God. We will feel the most deeply satisfied with our lives when we are doing that well. And what better way to do that than to live in a constant state of faithfulness in who He is and what we know is in His heart for us? To do that would be to live in a state of complete confidence in our identity in Him.

I cannot imagine the effect that a life lived in that way would have on this world. It encourages me that although I did not choose well this time, that the Lord is faithful when I am not. That He has made an oath to never forsake me. That no one can snatch me out of His hand. I’m sure I will have many more seasons where suddenly I feel a sense of separation from the Lord, and that I will have to make a choice once again about how I will let that affect the way my heart views Him. I hope so much that I will choose well. That I will have the strength to choose to sing out to my friends all the reasons that I love Him, despite circumstances telling me that I’ve been abandoned.

I guess that’s one of the reasons for this blog actually. I think that this is my way of singing out to my friends (with a great lack of eloquence) all the things that I love about my “Lover” and all the things that I know to be true about Him even when I cannot feel His presence.