Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

forgiveness

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: The Most Exquisite Gift

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For the next six Sundays I will be posting the Sunday devotional that I wrote for my church’s Lent devotional booklet. These will be a little bit different than my usual style: a little more reflection and devotiony, a little less story-based. I’ll also start with a Scripture reading and end with a prayer. This is my way of stepping back from the blog a bit during this Lenten season – thank you for your grace.

 

That Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! Again, he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit…” (John 20:22)

Think about this for minute: Jesus gave the gift of the Holy Spirit to his disciples as they sat together on the evening of Easter Sunday, just hours after he had risen. The disciples didn’t do anything to earn this treasured gift. Jesus didn’t require them to perform a certain number of good deeds or even believe a certain doctrine. He didn’t even require that they profess their faith to him.

In fact, this very moment came on the heels of their betrayal of Jesus, just three days after they’d abandoned him to the Romans and allowed him to die on the cross.

But none of that mattered to Jesus. He didn’t hold it against them. Jesus simply offered his disciples peace, twice, signifying that he forgave them, and then breathed the essence of himself in the form of the Holy Spirit into them, no questions asked, no strings attached.

You know what’s even more amazing about this story? Jesus does the same for each one of us.

We all make mistakes. We all sin. We all separate ourselves from God through our thoughts, actions and words. Jesus knows this about us, and He loves us anyway – fully, completely and unconditionally.

We don’t have to jump through any hoops, prove ourselves to God, perform a certain number of good deeds, follow a certain set of laws or rules – we get the gift. Period. In spite of our past and even our present flaws, we get the gift of the Holy Spirit, no questions asked, no strings attached. Knowing full-well we will flounder and flail and fall, Jesus trusts us anyway. He trusts us with this most exquisite gift: himself.

Dear God, I am humbled by your generosity and your infinite grace. You know my flaws. You know my sins. Yet you lavish the ultimate gift on me, day after day after day. Thank you for trusting me with the most precious gift of all, the gift of the Holy Spirit in me, a gift I don’t deserve but still receive.  Amen. 

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Welcome to the Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday community, a place where we share what we are hearing from God and his Word each week. If you’re here for the first time, click here for more information.

Please include the Hear It, Use It button (grab the code below) or a link in your post, so your readers know where to find the community if they want to join in — thank you!

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Thank you — I am so grateful that you are here!


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When Advent’s Not All Pretty and Perfect

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It begins with inappropriate words uttered over the breakfast table, followed by a discussion of those inappropriate words, followed by a retraction of the promised ice cream outing to Ivanna Cone scheduled for that evening. Then here’s the crying and the wailing and the gnashing of teeth (by both child and mother).

And the next thing I know, the nativity has been rearranged on the coffee table.

Baby Jesus sits in the very center, but instead of the tiny clay wise men and lambs and Joseph and Mary gazing down at him in a close-knit circle of adoration, Rowan has moved each of them to the far corners and edges of the table, with their backs turned to Jesus.

Every lamb, every goat, every angel is turned away from Emmanuel.

“You know, honey,” I say to Rowan when I spot the new arrangement, “even when you turn your back on Jesus, he still lives in your heart.”

No response.

I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe a revelation of sorts? Maybe I expected Rowan to look up at me all gracious and repentant, a flash of illumination written across his face. It’s Advent, after all. Isn’t Advent supposed to be pretty and perfect? All glittery and shiny and beautiful? A season of anticipation and awaiting and love?

But he didn’t. Rowan turned his back on me, too, and walked away.

There I was, poised to point my finger and start ranting and raving, when I caught another glimpse of those wise men and the sheep turned away from Jesus. And it hit me hard. I do it, too. I’m no different than Rowan. I turn my back on Jesus, too. I walk away from him. I can’t point my finger at Rowan without first pointing at myself.

In the end, the lesson I intended for Rowan is really meant for me. I need the reminder, too – that Jesus is Emmanuel. God with us. No matter what.

I need to remember that even when I turn my back on him, he still lives in my heart. He doesn’t abandon me. He doesn’t walk the other way.

Emmanuel.

God with us.

Amen.

 Have you ever had a revelation like that — did you ever suddenly realize that God is with you, no matter what? 

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Linking with Jennifer and Emily today:

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: The One and Only True Judge

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I slam on my brakes, assuming he’s going to pull out in front of me, but he screeches to a stop at the last second. He’s steaming mad, fist raised, mouth moving furiously. At the stoplight he pulls alongside my mini-van, rolls down his window and leans across the front seat. Then, shaking his finger in barely contained rage, he lambasts me.

“Why is that mean, mad man yelling at you?” Rowan asks from the backseat. I blink back tears as I grip the steering wheel and stare straight ahead.

A couple of days later I spot the same man crossing the street near the kids’ school. When I recognize his taupe trench coat and shock of white hair, I have the urge to knock him flat with my mini-van.

Turns out, his granddaughter is in Rowan’s class. Once or twice a week for the rest of the year, I loiter next to him on the concrete steps as we wait for the school dismissal bell to ring. And as the weeks turn into months, I still can’t forgive him for yelling at me. I am still so angry. And he has no idea.

I thought about my grudge when I read the story of Joseph and his brothers this week.

Joseph’s brothers were terrified he would retaliate, and with good reason. After all, they’d schemed to kill him, sold him to slavery and told Jacob, their father, that he was dead. But Joseph surprised them all by forgiving them:

“Don’t be afraid of me. Am I God, that I can punish you?” (Genesis 50:19, NLT)

Joseph knew what I have struggled to accept: that God is the one and only true judge.

Nearly eight months have passed since the man chastised me at the stoplight. I still see him from time to time at the kids’ school.  I don’t feel the anger I once did, but I’m not sure I’ve quite forgiven him yet.  It’s been easy for me to point my finger at the man’s flaws, to place myself above him in my refusal to forgive him.

Joseph’s story reminds that I don’t have the right to judge. Whether I like it or not, that authority belongs to God alone. I remind myself that many years passed before Joseph was reunited with his brothers – many years in which he undoubtedly worked hard at forgiving them. I trust that in due time, I might completely forgive the man I begrudge, too. 

When you feel you’ve been wronged, how do you relinquish the urge to punish or judge and move toward forgiveness instead?

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Welcome to the “Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday” community, a place where we share what we are hearing from God and his Word.

If you’re here for the first time, click here for more information. Please include the Hear It, Use It button (grab the code below) or a link in your post, so your readers know where to find the community if they want to join in — thank you!

Please also try to visit and leave some friendly encouragement in the comment box of at least one other Hear It, Use It participant. And if you want to tweet about the community, please use the #HearItUseIt hashtag.

Thank you — I am so grateful that you are here!


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Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: Even on the Raving Lunatic Days

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Mother’s Day gifts from the boys {and proof that they still love me, despite the occasional raving lunatic days}



“Would there be anything I could do that would get you to not love me?” Noah asked me the other night as we were tucked under his comforter, watching the pine tree boughs wave against the moon. “No, absolutely nothing,” I assured him. “Even if you did the worst thing you could think of, even if you were in jail for your whole life, I would still love you.”

Yesterday morning, Mother’s Day, Rowan asked me nearly the same question. And I answered the same: “I love you guys every minute, every day, no matter what.”

“Even the lamp day, when you got super mad…did you love me the same that day, too? Or did you maybe love me a little bit less?” Rowan persisted.

Ah yes, the infamous lamp day. Not exactly the parenting moment I wanted to relive during the first 20 minutes of Mother’s Day: the day Rowan hurled a pillow across the living room and broke the lamp, mere hours after my mom had bought me a new lamp to replace the other lamp Rowan had broken more than 8 months before. The day I’d morphed into a maniacal lunatic.

I’d gripped the lamp base white-knuckled in my fist and raised it over my head, shaking it and raving incoherently. My mother stood speechless next to me, paralyzed along with the boys by my bellowing outburst. I ordered the boys to their rooms while I swept up the fragments, ranting about how they’d spend the entire day behind closed doors. My mother followed suit, retreating to the basement guest room as I crashed around the kitchen, slamming the box of fresh donuts into the trashcan and fuming aloud to myself while the boys howled in their bedrooms.

Not exactly indicative of the kind of overflowing love Paul talks about in his letter to the Philippians:

“I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep growing in knowledge and understanding.” (Philippians 1:9)

As Pastor Greg preached about how parents must practice sacrificial love, tough love and gracious love, I thought about how much I’d failed as a mother on the lamp day. I thought about how I’d spread fear, how I’d burned with anger, overflowing not with love, but with bitterness and resentment; how I’d epitomized gracelessness. 

But as I slumped in the pew, I also thought about the conversation that had taken place in the kitchen on Mother’s Day morning, and the answer I’d given Rowan when he asked if I’d loved him less on the lamp day. “Even though I was really mad, and really disappointed about the lamp, and even though I really yelled a lot, I still loved you just as much,” I assured Rowan. “My love wasn’t even a tiny bit less. Love stays the same no matter what.”

My answer seemed to satisfy Rowan as he slurped the remainder of his milky cereal. And you know what? Later, after Pastor Greg’s sermon, I realized that my answer applies to me, too. No matter how disappointing my behavior, no matter how God may grieve my raving lunatic lamp days, he still loves me just the same, not even a little bit less. No matter what.

How does God’s limitless grace make you feel {especially on those raving lunatic days}?

With Jen and the Soli Sisters…

 

 
Welcome to the “Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday” community, a place where we share what we are hearing from God and his Word.

If you’re here for the first time, click here for more information. Please include the Hear It, Use It button (grab the code over in the sidebar) or a link in your post, so your readers know where to find the community if they want to join in — thank you!

Please also try to visit and leave some friendly encouragement in the comment box of at least one other Hear It, Use It participant. And if you want to tweet about the community, please use the #HearItUseIt hashtag.

Thank you — I am so grateful to have you here!

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Click here to “like” my Facebook Writer page. Thank you!