We will come back to the following point when we talk about “repairing ... the devastations of many generations” (Isaiah 61:4), but it is easy to dishonour our parents (see Exodus 20:12) when thinking or talking about their deficiencies (or worse). It is far too easy to get stuck in blaming them (or others) for everything that has gone wrong in our lives. On the other hand, it does not honour them to pretend that they were perfect when they were not. No one is perfect (well Jesus was, but He was the only one). When we think on these things it is good to remember that we are not perfect either.
I have a friend who is adopted, and who went through a very difficult stage where he found it very hard to get over the fact that his birth mother was not there for him. It left him with deep feelings of abandonment, rejection and all this seriously affected his self worth. I know of others who are stuck in still trying to please a parent who is unable to show appreciation. Such parents were likely never shown appreciation themselves. If you are relying on things like this to change before you can become whole, you could well have to wait until after you die. In other words its not going to work. I heard one counselor put it this way “You cannot expect the truck that ran you over, to come back and fix you”. In particular, if we are depending on others changing in order to get our needs met, we are not likely to get healed.
When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden (Genesis 3) they hid from God. When the Lord called them to account “Where are you Adam?” Adam answered “I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” This simple phrase contains many of our ailments. We are afraid of rejection, we suffer from shame and we hide, thus finding ourselves in isolation. Jesus came to reverse these things, and to bringing us back to the Father (John 14:6). I hinted earlier that our parents give us our first glimpse of God. But it too easily becomes idolatry. We may even reject God because we subconsciously identify Him with our earthly parents ('if God is like my dad - I don't want any part of Him'). However no matter how good (or bad) our parent were, they are not God, and if we are to become fully whole, we must begin the process of coming out of idolatry. That is we need to start the process of “changing Fathers”. Our Heavenly Father is the only true and faithful guardian of our souls (1 Peter 2:25).
And He has taken the initiative, and continues to take the initiative. So often the trials, difficulties, temptations, rejections, hurts and wounds we receive from simply living life, leave us with an aching orphaned spirit. Even the secular aids to recovery have recognized this orphaned spirit. This can be seen from the proliferation of books, articles and research concerning the “inner child”. Secular Psychology can do much to identify and help us understand what are the problems, but far too often leaves us there with the understanding, but with the inability to do anything about it (see “Psychology without faith is lame”). On the other hand “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (see last months posts). Concerning the debilitating fear of rejection, the Scripture tells us that “Perfect love casts out all fear” (1 John 4:18), and the only perfect love is the Love of God. In fact all our ailments find resolution in the intimacy of His embrace. He heals the brokenhearted (Isaiah 61:1).
Scripture tells us clearly of this initiative of which I speak. “He chose us in him before the creation of the world.... in love... to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ”. In this quotation from Ephesians 1:4,5 there are two verbs we need to take note of. First if you belong to Him (and you can be if you receive His salvation), He wants you to know that you are chosen. He pursued and wooed you to Himself. I remember my own moment of surrender. “I cannot fight you anymore” I told Him. “I am not fighting you Phil” He told me. It was because of, and for love that He pursued me and it is the same reason He pursued or pursues you. What I needed to surrender was my own foolish pride and self sufficiency. In the end my self sufficiency was anything but. Why is it that so often we need to come to the end of ourselves before we will stop hiding from and resisting His love?
The second verb is “adopted”. So He chose, and He adopted you and me (if and when we surrendered our lives to Him). Most of us suffer from some form of rejection, but in the passage quoted above, Paul tells us that God never rejects us. In fact He was thinking about us from the foundation of the World (verse 4 above). Since it was at that time that He chose us we were never rejected by Him. We are in fact “accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6). We are intended to enter into this in our experience of Him. I remember well the testimony of a young woman whose parents had wanted a boy and got her instead. In her encounter with the Father she was given this picture of God rejoicing at her birth, with the Lord himself holding her up wrapped in a pink blanket, to show her off to the angels. Note the colour of the blanket! This experience of the Father's love changed her.
The Father loves you, He really does. He is crazy about you, yes little old you! I don't know why we have such trouble believing this, though I do have some clues. Even when we get it into our heads, it seems to take forever for it to penetrate into our hearts, for us to feel loved. The fact of the matter is, that He has indeed taken the initiative (John 3:16), but we do need to respond. We need to read about it (in His Word) and to believe it. We need to meditate on it, and we need to ask the Father to show us anything in our lives that hinders the closeness of His presence. He has told us that when we seek Him with all of our hearts, we will find Him (Jeremiah 29:13). We do need to respond to Him, even if we do not initially feel anything. He who seeks finds, to him who knocks it will be opened unto him (Matthew 7:8). The feelings will come if we persist. He has promised.
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