JOY : From Shame to New Life

I lie in bed at night, I can’t sleep, my brain won’t stop spinning in circles, replaying, over and over that stupid thing I said during the day. I pray, I know I was wrong, I come to God for forgiveness, and I know he has forgiven me—but still I feel awful. It’s not so much the guilt, but the shame. Every time the shameful feeling surges up I roll over in bed, shudder and push it back down again. I just wish I could sleep, forget about it and wake up in the morning without even a memory of it and hopefully no one else will remember either—because I am so ashamed.

Why can’t I just forget it? Why can’t I just accept forgiveness, from God and others? Why can’t I move on?  I hear a phrase “the Joy of Forgiveness” Joy? That’s not just forgetting, that’s more. I want that.

My first baby was born on the day we celebrated my father's 50^th birthday and some of my labor (that I always intended to be totally private) was spent in front of my extended family opening presents, I struggled hard to hide the pain and embarrassment from them, I hid my face in my husband at every contraction and I remember my satisfaction at my success when towards the end of the evening my brother in law asked if I’d had any contractions yet. But there came the point when I could not hide it anymore. With my babies birth came immense pain, physical and emotional exposure, nakedness, lack of control, blood, vomit, sweat, weakness and exhaustion. Without a doubt birth has been one of the most shameful situations I have been in.

And yet—I feel no shame.

 NONE.

My baby was born and I knew Joy. I stood there within all the pain, shame, mess, exhaustion and nakedness and I held my baby with my husband and knew only joy. An intense joy in the new life God had created.

And after he was born, I told anyone I could about his birth, about the process and the shame and about the Joy and the wonderful thing God had done in our life and his.

It is the same with our spiritual birth. Our sin is the cause of great shame. Intense shame, a shame that Jesus took on himself when he died on the cross in pain, nakedness and exposure. A public shame, a shame that can’t be hidden. My sin caused a shame greater than I can ever imagine.

And yet, like my baby's birth, I no longer need to feel the shame because I “look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who FOR THE JOY that was set before Him endured the cross, DESPISING THE SHAME, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Jesus despised that shame. That shame means nothing to him because of the Joy that came after, the Joy of rising again and sitting with God—the Joy of the Forgiveness of his people, the Joy of new life.

Because of the shame of my sin, the forgiveness from it and the new life God gives me I have great Joy. The shame of sin, the shame of the cross and the birth of new life is all part of the story. I can not have joy of forgiveness without first facing the shame of sin. 

"But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

I can rejoice in forgiveness and glorify God for his grace only when I stop hiding the shame of my sin. I can have so much joy and wonder that I tell anyone I can about the shame I had, the process of change God has worked and is working in me and the Joy of forgiveness and new life he has given me and continues to give me everyday.

That Joy is so intense that the shame, the shame that all can see is no longer felt. Jesus does not feel the shame, and neither should I. 

Tulips and Trust

Spring in Dunedin is a Beautiful thing. Sunshine and rain, trees bursting with blossoms, and the flowers. Oh the flowers! This year the kids planted tulips in their little gardens in our tiny backyard. Everyday we could look outside and see them growing, changing, and claiming their rightful place center stage in the kids' gardens because they are beautiful.

Although we planted our bulbs I am reminded that there is little else I or the kids did to make these flowers grow. God grows the flowers, we just enjoy them. It never ceases to amaze me that God seems to make them grow so beautiful so I can enjoy them. But he also made them beautiful for another reason. He made them beautiful to remind me of His sovereignty, His power and His love.

‘Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!’                                                          Luke 12:27-28

God made each tulip grow, he cared, so made them beautiful. And he cares for me too.

All season God grew them tall, he sprinkled the rain on their wide leaves, He opened their petals to the sun and he closed them in the night and through the hail. And he promises that if the flowers have reason to surrender to His ways, how much more reason do I, whom he loves, have to trust Him.

Yes our life goes on and we face nights and days, sunshine and storms but God promises that he is always in control. I might struggle to control my own life, and yes I might worry about basic things like how to feed my family, where we are going to live, and how we’ll be clothed. But the fact is I’m not in control, I’m never in control. I don’t know what will happen, at the moment I can’t even guess. But I do know that God does know and that He loves, cares and is providing for me.

But today I look at the kids gardens and see that spring is almost over and the tulips are dying. Summer is slowly arriving and their beauty is fading and falling away. But there is a beauty in this too, because I know God is still in control. 

I know that He will always be in control. 

Long after summer comes, the flowers fall and the plant dies, spring will come again, and again, God will grow that flower.

Yes God has always provided for me, he is providing for me and all this life he will provide for me till eventually the eternal spring will come and God will provide for me forever. 

 “You have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.”    

1 Peter 1:23

In Awe of Gods Living Word

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Hebrews 4:11-13

I haven’t blogged for a long while, and I've had some pretty big thoughts going around my head. But today I just want to share a discussion we had as a family last night that meant a lot to- well, all of us I think.

As usual, putting the kids in bed was taking ages, and as usual the kids, especially Miles used the opportunity to talk about everything that came to his head. I had just told him “I wish you would be quiet” when he made a statement.

 “God puts more and more stuff in the bible all the time, so it’s always new and we can learn more”

 “Well, no, everything we need to know is already in the Bible, Miles”

 “So the bible is full then? What about when you know it all?”

Miles has recently learnt the value of “learning” as opposed to “knowing” and how it’s good for our brains and I guess the same thought processes were carrying through to learning about God. How can one keep “learning” or in a spiritual way “growing” once you “know” it all.

Obviously this seems like quite an arrogant question- It is quite a big and pretty much impossible job to “know” it all even just intellectually, but at the same time I know I’m guilty of often coming to the bible with very little expectation of learning something new from it.

But the answer Miles really needed to hear was the spiritual answer. “Yes theoretically you could intellectually “know it all” but the Bible is different from other books, the bible is ‘living’”

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
1 Peter 1:22-24

“The words, content and message of God’s word always stay the same, but the way the Holy Spirit works in us and in our lives means that we can always learn more.”

Not surprisingly this answer didn't mean much to Miles. “But if you know it all, how can you learn more?”

“Let me think of an example…I know… look at this verse: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow”. When we lived in Adelaide I thought this just meant God makes us clean by taking our sin away, but when we moved to Dunedin and I saw snow, and I looked at this verse again, I realized that God doesn't just make us clean- he makes us beautiful, just like the snow. The verse was the same, but God helped me to learn something new from it”

You should have seen his eyes, he practically jumped up in bed from the realization. “So God gives us the same bible, and makes new things happen in real life, and shows us how they fit together, and then we can learn more!!!”

When was the last time I stood in awe and amazement at the work God does in our lives and the way he teaches and grows us though his word and his world? 
How often do I read the words in the Bible as living words expecting to grow and change from them?

When was the last time I stopped, looked around me, read his word and listened to what new precious truth the Holy Spirit had to show me? 

And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.
1 Thessalonians 2:12-14