Deep Unto Deep - Week #9

Chapter 6 – Dark Yet Lovely

I know we’ve had two weeks on this chapter already, but what Joan shared during my absence (thank you, Joan!) triggered more in me that I’d like to share this week before moving on to chapter seven. So I’m going to simply make some comments on Joan’s input this week:

1. “There is a childlikeness that I must acquire by His grace in order to receive this love and attention at a time of darkness, failure, intimidation, or whatever.”

This is a reminder of our need to mature into childlikeness, which I believe is (among other things) characterized by lack of self-consciousness; or to put it in positive language, childlikeness is characterized by “self-forgetfulness.” This is necessary in order to freely receive God’s love and attention in the midst of “darkness, failure, intimidation, or whatever.” And as Joan alludes to, this comes by grace as we obey the simple instructions that God gives us day to day, no matter the cost.

This also brought to mind the reaction of Adam and Eve to God after they had sinned. In their darkness and failure, they hid from Him rather than run to Him. This is the natural human response to God when we sin or fail in some way. The very time when we most need to run to Him for His salvation and cleansing, we run away because of fear and shame. I’m learning, albeit slowly, to stay in the love of God in those moments when I most want to run from His love to other “saviors” that will prop up the tendency of the flesh to want approval based on performance.

Holy Spirit of Jesus, come by Your grace and empower us to increasingly walk in childlikeness, that wonderful self-forgetfulness that readily receives your love and forgiveness and cleansing and moves on quickly (though not superficially) as a beloved child.

2. “A comment came my way that sent me into a dark corner and I didn't want to come out. In order to begin to be free of the effects of this comment, I had to take steps to offset situations of childhood that left me unaffirmed as a person. The effect of negative comments, etc. always has sent me into the dark corner. I am finally getting to realize this reality so that I could begin to take the steps to be free of the effect of not being affirmed. Then to bask in the love of God and begin to see His reality of who I am.”

Joan refers to her past as an unaffirmed child; to one degree or another, most of us have experienced this, even with the finest parents. I want to add that even those who have had unusual affirmation from their parents need to hear affirmation from God simply because human parental affirmation, wonderful as it is, will never take the place of divine affirmation from the heavenly Father. This is good news, because it implies that our sense of being and of well-being isn’t dependent on having had a perfect upbringing. God is sufficient for those deficits as we look to Him for life and health.

I love that Joan made the hard choice to not stay in “a dark corner” and “took steps to offset situations of childhood that left me unaffirmed as a person.” This is so important if we are to walk in the fullness of our destiny in God because there will constantly be comments made to us that have the potential to shut our hearts down. We can’t control what others do and say to us, but we can make choices by God’s grace about how we will process and respond to them, and these choices will determine how we mature in receiving God’s love and giving it.

Holy Spirit, would You strengthen us in choosing to not stay in "dark corners" of self-protection but to move out into the sunlight of Your presence.

3. “My desire has been for all of us to come to know in the deepest way God's personal love for us. This includes the area of the reconciling good and evil. This is a subtle trap for us as believers. We can see in our society today (including many church bodies), a destroying of the reality of God's love and truth especially in the realm of personal holiness. This reconciling does not bring personal freedom into our deepest being, let alone in this present world system. In this realm of love and truth, we must be able to issue mercy to ourselves in knowing that we are forgiven. God's mercy to each of us can come through in a deep level because of the blood of Jesus cleansing us and the Holy Spirit renewing us.”

When I read this, I was struck with how needful it is that we freely receive the love and mercy of God in order to NOT reconcile good and evil; in other words, there’s a strong tendency in us to excuse and cover up our sin if we don’t have revelation of the unconditional love of God for us even in our sin and weakness. It’s very difficult for us to face failure squarely without knowing that we are deeply loved and cared for even when we have sinned.

And it is in this very revelation that my heart is released from guilt and shame to want to be clean and upright before a holy God. Without such an understanding in my spirit, I will try to cover over my failure with “fig leaves” of justifications for why I behaved the way I did.

Holy Spirit, come and show us more of the unrelenting love of God the Father and of Jesus our Bridegroom so that we can "fail successfully" in Him and grow confidently in His love for His sake and the sake of many others.

I am “dark yet lovely” to God for the reasons I shared a couple of weeks ago; may this staggering truth continue to go deeply into us as His people, setting us free to love others unconditionally and thereby giving them a taste of divine acceptance in Christ Jesus.

Blessings on you this week; next week we’ll look at chapter seven: Longing.