It happened again yesterday. A conversation between a mom and her 3 year old that left my heart on the floor, my jaw almost there and my blood pressure through the roof.
He came running up to her, upset that he had been shoved. Like any mom, she grasps his shoulders, looks him over and pronounces that he is fine. Following the once-over, she tells him "Next time, tell them, 'That's not nice, God doesn't like it when you push.'"
I'm screaming on the inside for her to go deeper than this. To not condense God into a box of don't do this or that for the simple reason of Him not "liking" those things. Because what if it was her kid that had done the shoving? Will he feel condemned, that he can't measure up, that God doesn't like him because of the action?
No wonder we have so many people, especially young ones, throwing up their hands, realizing the church has impossible standards to meet. They're constantly met with long lists of don't do this, don't do that, you should have done this not that, especially don't do that... On and on and on until you're so burdened down and exasperated you find it easier to live up to the world's standards (and has anybody realized how ridiculous those are - we're all chasing the "perfect" body with no one having a clue what that actually looks like).
The ugly truth? That we're not nice, we're not good, we absolutely cannot please a Holy and Perfect God.
We are, by nature, children of wrath. That knowledge of the law only brings about knowledge of our transgressions, our iniquities, our lawlessness, our sinfulness. There is no hope from our human stand point to enter into His rest.
But God, in His mercy, in His love, in His foreknowledge, made a way to make us good and lovely and right and pure.
The beautiful truth is, it's not dependent on us. It's dependent on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Who, for the joy set before Him endured the cross.
So when we get so wrapped up in our legalistic, "thank you God that I'm not like that," it's time to take a step back and look at what was achieved on the cross: that when we have received salvation and believed in Jesus's name, we have been stripped of our filthy, moth-eaten, dirt-caked rags and in exchange been given a gloriously beautiful robe of righteousness.
Meditate on that.
That means, when my kids fail, when I fail, I take the opportunity to point us to the character and nature of God. A God that delights in us, cherishes us, forgives us (past, present and future) and helps us.
That time after time, we will fall short of the glory of God, but in Jesus Christ, we stand perfected for all time.
Isaiah 43:4 & 10, Isaiah 44:22
Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you... (You are) my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.
I have blotted our your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.
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