Tag Archives: shame

Delight and the Power of Yada (Part 3 of 3)

Bible, Christianity, covenant, knowing God, , , , , ,

That the Creator of the universe should desire to know us deeply and to love us in the knowing is amazing. That He should desire that we know Him deeply and love Him in the knowing is staggering. God comes to us with His desire to know when we bring to Him our desire to be known. God longs for us to respond to His desire to be known with our desire to know.

Convinced that His love toward us is absolutely unfailing and completely trustworthy, we can lay ourselves fully open before the Lord. Believing that His love is perfect casts out our fear so that we are able to lay ourselves bare before God, refusing to run, refusing to create inner noise, and insisting instead on being still in His Presence. In this safe place, we find that His correction to us, if needed, is not condemnation; it is liberation. When Lazarus emerges from the grave, he is not shamed; instead, he is welcomed, and the binding strips of cloth are removed from him.

But there is more–much more. Within this yada relationship, there is this:

I lay my entire self open before God to be known and to be loved by Him. From head to toe–from inside to out–every pore of my spirit is laid open before Him. As the sun can penetrate and warm everything that is laid in its rays of light, so God comes to all of me that is willingly laid before Him–laid before Him with my full trust of Him and with my eager desire for Him. Where I submit, He loves me well, and there is healing in that loving. Where I yield, He loves me well, and there is joy in that loving.

Every part of our lives that is willingly opened to God becomes spiritual thread that God uses to weave us together in connection with Him. God uses our willingness to be known and our desire to know Him to knit our spirits in union with Himself. Such union is both the power and the delight of yada.

Previous post

 

Hiding and the Power of Yada (Part 1 of 3)

Bible, Christianity, relationships, , , , , , , , ,

Rough bark scraped across the man’s bare chest as he rushed to crouch in the gathering darkness of the trees.  An unfamiliar sense of guilt threatened to suffocate the man. His frantic attempts to cover himself had failed to ease his shame, just as the thin veil of dusk did nothing now to stifle his panic. With every beat of his heart, the man felt the urge to hide hammering throughout him. Suddenly, he held his breath.

“Adam, where are you?”

And so began our long history of hiding.

Adam and Eve hid from God in the Garden of Eden, and all of humankind since then has shared in this hiding. In shame and in fear, we hide from God in spirit and from one another in soul.

Yet we were not made for hiding; we were made to be known. We long desperately to be known–fully known–and to be loved in the knowing. Despairing, though, of finding someone who will both know us well and love us well, we cling to our places of hiding, hoping that these will be safe, even if solitary.

When we were enemies of God, hiding was consistent with our position as lovers of darkness. But then the unexpected happened: the Son of God entered the darkness with us. He took our reasons for hiding and made them His own. As Christ became hidden from God in death, our reasons for hiding were destroyed.

There is, therefore, now no need to hide (Romans 8:1).

hiding

Our shame and guilt have been swallowed up by Christ Himself, and our fear is dissipated in the light of His intense love.

But even now, as friends of God, we hide from Him. To our own immense loss and to God’s great sorrow, we hide. In busyness, niceness, denial, and noise, we hide.

When invited to open ourselves in honest self-disclosure before God, we cry out, “But, Lord, there will be a terrible stench!” Just as Martha was afraid to open the tomb of Lazarus, so we fear opening to God areas in our lives that we have preferred to conceal. But to keep them closed to God means that those areas will suffer increasing decay.

However, when we are willing to open these places to the Lord, then the infinite kindness and power of God work miraculous healing in our tombs of rebellion and tombs of grief.

As surely as Jesus called to Lazarus, so He calls to us to come out.

We are invited to come out into the light of freedom, where we may be released from our life-stifling wrappings of fear and shame.

The deep longing of our hearts to be known is not unique to us as men and women, nor is it random. It comes by deliberate design, for it reveals the very heart of the One in whose image we have been made: it is the deep longing of God Himself to be known and to be loved in the knowing. This is the stunning message of Scripture.

Next post

 

Responses to Nakedness (last time!)

Bible, Christianity, Jesus, marriage, relationships, , , , , ,

When Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan, was He cognizant of the fact that He Himself would soon be in the same situation of being exposed before others? As He hung on the cross, Jesus experienced all of the varying “responses to nakedness.” There were accusers (like the serpent); there were those who mocked and sneered (like Ham); there were those who fled and “hid their faces” from another’s disfigurement (like the priest and the Levite); and there were a few who honored and ministered to the wounded one (like Shem, Japheth, and the Good Samaritan).

How do we, as God’s people, respond to revealed brokenness in our spouses? How do we respond to exposed neediness in their spirits and souls? We can reflect God Almighty, the One whose image we bear, when we do the following:

  • when we resolve always to move toward our spouses emotionally and spiritually,
  • when we graciously offer healing,
  • when we pour out from our own lives (although we are also broken and needy),
  • and when we resolve to bring honor to our covenant partners.

In hanging on the cross in nakedness and shame, Jesus did what the Good Samaritan could not do: He took the wounds onto Himself, took the nakedness onto Himself, and offered His own clothing and wholeness to the broken man. This is what God offers to do for each one of us: take the shame that we are trying in vain to hide with our flimsy fig leaves, and fully cover it instead with His own skin.

God’s response to our nakedness is to make it His.

Previous post

 

Responses to Nakedness (part 2 of 4)

Journal, , , , ,

Drunk and naked in his tent? That is how we find Noah in chapter 9 of Genesis, and it is a  startling situation to find. After all, Noah was introduced to us as “a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God” (Genesis 6:9, NIV). This unusual situation, although it may be uncomfortable for us, provides an excellent illustration of the “approaches to nakedness” principles.
1. Noah’s son Ham “saw his father’s nakedness and told” others about it.  This is the way of the serpent: when nakedness (weakness, wounding, or sin) is revealed, it is used to shame, dishonor, or accuse.
2. In contrast, when Shem and Japheth learned of their father’s nakedness, they “took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father’s nakedness.Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father’s nakedness.” (Genesis 9:23, NIV) This is God’s way: when nakedness is revealed, the one who loves will seek to bring healing and to restore honor.
In marriage, when we encounter the wounds and brokenness (“nakedness”) of our spouses, we can choose to respond like the serpent and Ham, or like God, Shem, and Japheth. If we choose to shame or degrade, we reduce ourselves spiritually to crawling on our bellies and eating dust, like the serpent. If we choose to dishonor, we will find ourselves cursed as “the lowest of slaves,” like Ham (Genesis 9:25, NIV).
However, instead of shaming, we can work to bring healing and honor. Like Shem and Japheth, we can walk into the darkness and make effort to restore honor. While we do not love the brokenness, we willingly enter those areas and work to love well in those areas. When we do this, we are responding as God responded to us.

Previous post

Next post

 

Two Different Responses to Nakedness (part 1 of 4)

Journal, , , , ,

In the first few chapters of Scripture, we learn that Satan seeks to reveal our nakedness in order to shame us and to accuse us. But God seeks to cover our nakedness in order to honor us and to heal us. He was willing to give us His clothing at Calvary; He was willing to be naked and shamed and accused in our place.

Within marriage, spouses are revealed to one another. If they follow the serpent’s lead, they will use their “knowing” of one another to shame, to accuse, and to destroy. If they choose to reflect God instead, they will use their knowing of one another to honor and to heal. They will be willing even to suffer so that the other is healed.

Next post