But First, Love
As I write this blog, we are two weeks into the Lenten season. Lent begins each year on Ash Wednesday, and it’s marked by the word: “Repent.” This six-letter word, with its tremendous exhortation, journeys with us for six weeks as we resolve to honor the passion of Christ and improve our spiritual life.
If I’m honest, sometimes preparing for Lent feels similar to the process of preparing for the New Year. I take stock, evaluate what needs to change, and sink into my soul to listen for what it longs for most.
What should I take away, what should I add?
What am I refusing to surrender, where am I afraid to trust?
Am I “friends” with my sin?
Is there anything I hunger and thirst for more than God?
These are the customary questions I explore each year at this time, but for some reason, they are not driving the behavioral response that they have before. I feel something different longing to be excavated and experienced.
It’s not my brokenness, my sinfulness, or my humanness that calls. I am aware of these things and am a HUGE proponent of a robust confession & repentance practice. (Check out Psalm 139:23-24, more about this to come later)
What I hear, softly humming beneath the surface, is the sweet sound of my belovedness singing harmony to the melody of my soul.
I’ve heard this song before.
Was it the chorus that God sang over me as He knit me together in my mother’s womb, or perhaps the rhythm that God tapped out as He composed the days of my life in His book? I am not sure, but I am certain it is something that God wants me to embrace and carry forward in my life.
Lent, for me this year, is all about first loves and first things first. It’s about accepting the invitation to examine what I am believing about myself, and what God is speaking to me before all of the things that need to be done to transform spiritually.
If we get these things out of order, or worse, believe lies about Who God is and who we are, we will only welcome more shame into our hearts.
God wants us to know we are loved more than He wants us to know that we are sinners. And He pursues us so passionately with love that He chose to endure the cruelty and pain of a Roman cross to prove it.
We aren’t sinful creatures that He is disappointed in and can’t stand to look upon. Yet the message about how bad, sinful, and wrong we are is what’s most often spoken. Those words sound like the Accuser’s voice, not the voice of Love. Sinfulness is not what God sees when He looks upon us. He sees worthiness because that is how He created us to be.
“Tell a person repeatedly that she is not worthy, and the message eventually takes over her reality. She will deny, forget, or submerge her fundamental goodness and center on her “badness.” - Joyce Rupp
When God looks upon us, He sees people He can love.
What a life-giving gift it would be if, this Lent instead of “remembering our sins,” we could pause and remember that we are loved.
It’s time to view sin in relation to God’s love for us.
His love is greater.
His love is greater than our sins. His love is greater than our hearts, our problems, and our doubts. He is a Rock that is higher than ourselves.
Give Him your sins and watch what He does with them. He demolishes them, casts them off, supernaturally repairs our hearts, and then He layers more love on top of the love that was already there.
Lift your chin, precious Daughter. Shift your gaze, courageous Son. It’s time to live from a place of love rather than for it.