Kindness and Warmth

I was raised and taught in the church to never ask God for patience, for he would send the worst of humanity to you or cause your car to break down in an untimely fashion, and you’d get stuck on the phone with the cable company for hours on end, so that your patience would increase through the fire of frustration. 

I was told not to ask God to refine me because he may do that with cancer, the pre-mature death of a loved one, loss of income, or with something else that would one day be used as a testimony but ultimately would be the biggest source of pain in my life. 

I remember being taught that we were like winepresses: to get new wine out of us we must be crushed, broken down, and stepped on by a God trying to make something good out of our wretched humanity. 

“Why,” I would ask myself, “does God delight and engage in my pain knowing it will cause me to writhe in agony?”  I would quickly follow it up with “For my good! This is for my good!” But despite reassuring myself, I still avoided such prayers for patience and refinement because I wasn’t sure I wanted the pain.  I did, and at times still do, wrestle with the tension of a loving father giving good gifts to his children while also holding an image in my mind of a God with his iron rod of discipline looking to see how much he could take away, so that when all was stripped from me my ultimate desire was only for him. 

This was an image of a cruel and narcissistic god (I called it “holy,” ignorantly enough).  I believed that if I sang my songs pretty enough, served hard enough, loved big enough, preached good enough, and looked the part – he would relent and see a patient refined image and would leave me alone except to bless me.  Unless a bad day came and all that was left was me; broken, sinful, impatient, crass, and cruel.  Then my savior would come to beat me into shape and make me holy again. 

One day I had a revelation – my messed-up idea of who God was came from the harsh words and hands of people representing him.  Some doing their utmost to serve God in the best way they could, broken but faithful, others using the name of God to manipulate me for their will.  It sent me on a pathway to figure out what kind of God I serve.  It felt dark in the journey. Lonely––oh so lonely.  I remember thinking of that old VeggieTalessong from the VHS “Where’s God when I’m scared?”  In the quiet darkness of his room, Junior Asparagus sang the song softly at first, until louder and louder and brighter and brighter the room became, and the chorus joined with him singing, “God is bigger than the boogie man, bigger than Godzilla or the monsters on TV!”

But in my darkness, in my loneliness I wrestled with the question, “What if God is the boogie man?”    

In Hosea, God makes a promise to Israel that felt just as personal for me as I’m sure it did for them all those centuries ago.  He says, “I am going to take her into the desert again; there I will win her back with words of love. I will give back to her the vineyards she had and make Trouble Valley a door of hope” (2:14, GNB).

A crack.  A little sliver of light under the doorway of a darkened room.  And with that little bit of light came warmth.  Years ago (I was 11 to be exact) I was given a prophetic word that piece by piece has come to pass.  One line stood out to me that became more and more real as I began to search out the character of God.  It said, “And you will know his presence, because it will surround you like a warm blanket.” Slowly and faithfully, like soft kisses on a cheek, I began to discover the gentleness of the Lord. 

Even when I screwed up, even when I sinned, I looked to see if the god with the iron rod was standing over me and always, I would find God next to me cleaning my open wounds with a tenderness, compassion, and an eager willingness to make what was broken whole and safe.  When wrong was done to me, I looked to see if his arms were folded waiting for it to “conform me to his image” and instead I always saw him defending me, protecting me and turning to me to heal and comfort me.

I remember there was a day when I realized there wasn’t a day everything changed.  It sounds strange, but none of it was instantaneous.  Everything had changed over time and one day I realized that.  Slowly, through consistency, God was present, God was near, God was kind.  So kind.  I trusted him so much that I knew he would give me the desires of my heart if I asked for them, but I knew he was so kind that I wanted the desires of his heart for me more because I knew it was beyond what I could comprehend or even imagine (Ephesians 3:20).   The dark, image of a god like the Greek Triton, towering over my frame waiting to either create calm or chaos in my life at his own whim––a god ready to step on me, hoping good wine will pour out, began to look like a twisted villain in a Saturday morning cartoon, and now felt foreign.  I didn’t know that god anymore.

Here I am.  Years later, still learning the kindness of the Lord and trusting that there’s more to discover. Now I ask God for patience.  Because I know that instead of making my life worse to beat it into me, he gives me compassion and grace for those I encounter. 

Now I cry out “refine me, purify me, I want to be consumed by you!” and I don’t wait for untimely deaths, disastrous diseases, or the worst cases scenario to come true in all my scenarios.  Instead, I receive revelations of his grace.  I see him waiting for me, I’m confronted by my own misconceptions and perpetuated harsh habits, passed down generation to generation that I replicate. He’s smiling in delight, anticipating my lighter load, waiting for me to surrender it so I carry it no more.  He delights in my freedom because he loves me so much.

How imperfect I still am.  Why I wrestle with the shadows of my false god made in the image of harsh men is beyond me.  But imperfectly I stumble forward into his presence, and it surrounds me like a warm blanket.

What is your biggest fear about God?  What is it, that if you were to be honest and speak of it to no one terrifies you about your faith?  Or lack of it?  You’ll get no judgement from me. This is my prayer for you, dear one.  May you receive the revelation from the Lord that fills your own fears. As he continues to do it for me, may he do it for you.  Whatever your journey, whatever your questions, whatever your pain, whatever you’re striving for, may he fill it all and may you walk in freedom and fullness.