GRACE BLOGS COLLECTION
Over the years, I have built up walls around my heart. Because of things I have gone through in the past — hurts, rejections, disappointments — I have built these ramparts to protect myself. A lot of us have walls up to protect us from getting hurt. We somehow think that if we isolate our hearts — the center of our emotions and feelings — that we will not get hurt again.
Khotyn Fortress by Yarik Zinkof, Flickr, CC
Sometimes that’s true. Those of us that have fortified hearts don’t allow others into the inner sanctuary of our true selves. We allow people to come in only so far until they are subtly reminded that there is a wall there that says no entry. It’s a defense against getting hurt.
Sometimes, people even build up a wall to keep God out of their inner sanctuary.
But we were not meant to live in isolation. We were not meant to live without others. God created humanity to be interdependent upon one another. We are not meant to be co-dependent but interdependent. We need each other. We need the comfort of another human being during our times of distress, anxiousness, and sadness. We need the strength of another human being when we are struggling and are weak.
We need another human being to see our frailties, weaknesses and failings in order for us to realize that we are lovable and worth immense value despite our brokenness and imperfections. We need another human being to see the shambles of our lives and tell us that it’s going to be okay.
That cannot, and will not happen, if we keep people out of the innermost places of our hearts.
For those that have walls built, because of hurt, rejection, being let down, trauma, disappointment or betrayal by someone close to you, you have most likely stated, “that will never happen to me again.” To keep it from happening again, you build a wall.
Some of us not only have a wall, but we have also built a moat and have a drawbridge. We’ve “castled our heart” to keep the bad people out.
The problem is that in protecting ourselves from the bad people, we’ve also denied ourselves the good ones.
I know because this is how I have lived for a long time . . . with a fort around my heart because I don’t want to get hurt again. I don’t want to be betrayed again. I don’t want to allow myself to get too close to people. And it’s stopped me from receiving the very thing I long for, the very thing I need….love.
I know that people love me. Love is to be shared between two or more people. Love is like a dance. It’s an intimate movement between two people. Love is not supposed to be one sided. The hope of loving someone is for them to love you back. When you have walls up to keep people at a distance, it’s hard to dance the dance of love with them. It’s hard to share intimate moments because you have people at arms length.
Many of us are like two awkward twelve-year-olds at our first dance. We are simply facing each other with enough room to put someone else between us as we shuffle our feet back and forth. Love is meant to be intimate, two souls touching one another in the deepest recesses of the heart. Love is allowing someone else to see you in all your glory and all your weaknesses. Love is allowing someone to see your best and your worst, knowing that they are not going to leave you. Love is knowing that you are valuable to someone else not because of what you have done or not done, but simply because you are.
When you have walls around your heart, you cannot experience the depth of that love, either with another human being or with your Heavenly Father. We were created to have these deep connections with other human beings as well as our Father.
Because of the brokenness of humanity, we have all experienced pain, trauma, hurt and betrayal at the hands of someone who loved us. We have caused pain, trauma, hurt and betrayal to someone else ourselves. We may very well be the reason someone else has put up a wall.
I know that God has been dealing with me about my walls. I know that He has been asking me to let Him in past the protective layers of my fortress. I know that, like the walls of Jericho, He wants to demolish those walls so that He and I can dance the dance of love. As I allow Him to do that, He is also asking me to let others in. Jesus came that we might be free, but we will never be free as long as we have a wall up around our heart.
What about you? Do you have walls built up? Do you find it hard to “let people in?”
Have you ever had a bad time in your life where you prayed for things to change, but they didn’t? This is especially hard when someone has caused you great pain and done something to cause you loss. 
I’ve been in this season for a while now. It started about five years ago. I am in a much better place now, but I still feel the sting of pain and loss from the actions of someone else.
Throughout this ordeal, there have been many times where I have wanted God to feel sorry for me. I have wanted him to deal with others in the way that David prayed in the Psalms. “Lord, smash them, vindicate me, get them good, let them hurt as I hurt.” That’s not an actual translation….that’s the Michael Wilson version.
I am sure that you are a much stronger person than I am and have never felt this way.
But this is not the Jesus way!
So, why won’t God just feel sorry for me and get me out of this mess? Why won’t he just snap his fingers and cause my circumstances, which were not my fault, mind you, to just change for the better. How long until things are fully restored as I desire them to be?
Because with God nothing is ever wasted! No problem, no scar, no miscarriage of justice. No pain, no hurt, no wound. Nothing is ever wasted with God. He has the ability to make ALL things work together for our good.
He has a way of turning every test we go through into a testimony we can share with someone else. He has the ability to turn every mess we are in into a message of hope and deliverance for someone else. He can turn every trial and tribulation into a triumph for those that will just trust him.
It would be easier for God to feel sorry for us and turn things around but what would we learn from that? Many times our children go through things that are not comfortable for them. As much as we want to, we don’t always get them out of their situation because we use it for a learning experience. It’s a teachable moment about how to overcome adversity. It’s a way to teach them that life is tough, but they are tougher.
Yes, at times, I want God to feel sorry for me. I want him to just supernaturally move me from the trials I am in to a place of comfort, a place of green pastures and still waters.
But I won’t grow like I should if all I have is comfort. I won’t grow if it’s always easy. I won’t learn obedience unless I go through some suffering. That’s how it worked for Jesus. Even though he was the Son of God and sinless, he still had to learn obedience through things that he suffered (Heb. 5:7).
With God nothing is ever wasted! He has the ability to make ALL things work together for our good.
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It’s easy to obey God when things are going our way when we feel we are on top of life and all things are good. It’s not so easy when we are suffering because of someone else’s mistakes and sins. It’s not as easy to trust God when our name is being dragged through the mud and people believe lies about us. We want vindication and justice. Many times, if not all, God simply whispers to us, “Let it go and trust me.”
Many times, we have a conversation like this with God:
“Can’t you just feel sorry for me and right all the wrongs done to me? That would make me feel better.”
“Let it go and just trust me.”
“Yea, but people believe stuff that’s not true and I am paying the price for their sins.”
“I paid the price for your sins and their sins, now let it go and just trust me.”
“But I am afraid you won’t come through for me. I mean look at them, they are prospering and happy. They are able to move on and I am stuck. I don’t like it here and it’s their fault. What are you going to do?”
“I am working all things out for you, and for them. Remember I love you both. I died for their sins as well as yours. My plans and purposes are greater than you will know, but you have to let this go and just trust me.”
“So you won’t feel sorry for me? You won’t make this easier on me?”
“No and no. My grace is sufficient for you, for in your weakness I am made strong. Trust me.”
I have had many conversations with God like this. While I will not say that this is one of those actual conversations, I can safely tell you that over the course of the last five years, this would be the summation of those conversations.
God will not feel sorry for us because he uses everything that happens to us to mold us, shape us, and form us into the human beings he created us to be . . . his sons and daughters reflecting his image and likeness.
God will not feel sorry for us, but he will lead us, guide us, work all things out for us and be strong in us as we simply trust and obey him. Even in the midst of deep hurt and pain, he is always there for us.
He won’t feel sorry for you but he will love the mess out of you!
Have you ever been blamed or accused of something that you didn’t do? It’s a terrible feeling. Even if we did do something wrong, when someone points that out often times we are hit with shame and regret. It’s never a good feeling.
Yet, we so often times are quick to blame or accuse others. Many times we do this without even having all the facts. It’s just so easy to cast blame upon someone else.
There is always the opportunity to be an accuser or an advocate.
In the Bible, we are introduced to a character that uses blame, accusation and scapegoating all the time. He is known as Satan, or the devil. The word Satan is not really a name, it’s a title. In the Hebrew it is ha-satan – the satan. The word satan simply means adversary or accuser. To the Jewish people it was used as a term for anyone that stood in opposition to someone else. The ancient Israelites didn’t believe ha-satan to be a fallen angel. They believed that he was a messenger of God, used by God to give humans an opposition that would allow them to choose good or evil.
I believe that the New Testament gives us a more detailed view of the satan, and shows us that he is evil, purely bent on destroying the lives of humanity. Most Christians today believe that he was once an angel who rebelled against God, because he wanted to be God. God kicked him out of heaven, and for reasons beyond the time constraints of this blog, he now has access to earth and to humanity.
His primary tools against humanity are blame, accusation and scapegoating. He accuses people before God continually. He is always reminding God of the wrongs, sins, mistakes, iniquities and just general bad behavior that we human beings engage in.
And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan,
who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. (Rev. 12:9-10, emphasis mine)
It’s interesting that the blame and scapegoating game got its start with the very first sin of humanity. When Adam and Eve were questioned about eating the forbidden fruit (Gen. 2), Adam starts off by blaming God and Eve.
This woman that you gave me. Adam did not take responsibility for his actions; he blamed his wife. Eve blamed the serpent , which she actually had a little more ground to stand on with this because the serpent did, in fact, deceive her. She believed the lie. Adam, in my opinion, knew better and should have stood up and said no.
Blame, accusation and scapegoating. It’s always someone else’s fault.
Siding with the satan
It’s so easy to blame others. It seems that we human beings need things to make sense, and the easiest way for that to happen in a senseless situation is to simply blame someone. At least now we have a reason for something bad happening. It’s someone else’s fault.
This is so prevalent in America. To the conservatives, the liberals are to blame for all of our country’s woes. To the liberals, the conservatives are to blame for standing in the way of progress.
At the time of this writing, guns are to blame for all of the mass shootings that have been happening. Yet, to the gun owners and gun rights advocates, those opposed to guns are the problem.
In churches, people tend to blame the pastor or church leaders when things go wrong, while the pastor and church leaders tend to blame the people for not being committed enough.
Husbands blame wives for things wrong in their marriage. Wives blame their husbands. On and on it goes.
When we use accusation, blame and scapegoating, we become the satan to the one the we are accusing, blaming or scapegoating. We actually side in with the devil.
As the satan is accusing us before God, and we are accusing and blaming others, the satan could easily say, “See, even their fellow human being, their fellow Christian brother/sister says the same thing.”
God wants us to be an advocate for one another. Since we all understand what it’s like to have limitations, frailties, weaknesses, temptations and sins, we should be the most graceful to one another. Yet, many times, we are not graceful but judgmental.
When it comes to people being accused before God I would rather stand there in someone’s defense, even if they are wrong, than to be the one accusing them. When I stand there in their defense, I am acting like Jesus, our Advocate. But when I stand there in accusation, I am acting like the satan, our accuser.
Jesus stands between the accusers and the accused. 
He did it for the woman caught in adultery in John 8. In this story the accusers were right that, under the Law of Moses, the woman was to be stoned because she had committed adultery. It was a capital offense.
The crowd had truth on their side. This woman had been caught in the very act (where was the man?).
They had the stones in their hands. But Jesus didn’t go along with the crowd. Honestly, most of the time, the crowd is wrong!
Jesus reminds them of their own sin in a most interesting way. As they all leave, he turns to her and asks where her accusers are. She replies that she does not know because they all walked away.
“Neither do I accuse you!” Jesus replies. What an awesome statement. The very one that could accuse her. The very one that could have given her a lecture on the sinfulness of her ways does no such thing. Most Christians tend to focus on the “go and sin no more” statement (which is important), but I like to focus on the fact that Jesus didn’t accuse or condemn her.
In this very situation, to have sided in with the crowd would have made you part of the accusers, the satans.
To accuse, blame and scapegoat makes us the satan’s star witness.
Prison life has always fascinated me. It’s another world inside those walls behind the fence. I’ve watched numerous prison movies and documentaries. The whole concept of survival in a place like that is interesting to me. I once had a friend who spent eighteen years of his life behind bars. His stories intrigued me as I listened to the things that went on behind the barbed wire.
Prison Bound/Thomas Hawk /BY-NC
As much as I am interested in prison life, I definitely would not want to go to prison!
Just the thought of it brings on a sickening feeling.
I was watching a movie recently about the life of Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls or the Notorious B.I.G. In the movie, Christopher was running from the police and he was carrying a weapon. As he was running he ditched the gun in a trash can. He was eventually caught and the police found the gun. They just didn’t know if the gun belonged to him or his friend who was with him at the time. Christopher had already done time and his music career was in the beginning stages of taking off. His friend told him he would take the gun charge for him so that he could get his music career going. It would have been a three year sentence. Christopher reluctantly agreed. Being this was a movie, I don’t really know how true the story line is but I do know that there are men and women who are doing time for someone else. That is true friendship and love for a friend.
I wonder if I would ever do time for someone else. I think about my kids or wife and I think I would do it for them. I don’t believe I will ever be put in that position but the point of doing someone else’s prison time is a very curious concept.
In my thought process, I see Jesus as doing time for me. How could the Almighty Son of God become a human, deal with temptations and human issues and then die? How is that even possible? I know that we read about that happening in myths and legends. I also know that many people believe that Jesus wasn’t the son of God. I know that many people don’t believe that Jesus was fully God and fully man.
But I believe it! I don’t know and understand all the intricacies involved in it but I believe it.
Jesus “did time” as a human being. He willingly became “imprisoned” in a human body with human limitations. The most miraculous part of it all was that he chose to do it. He chose to lay aside all his abilities as God and experience life as a normal human being.
The Bible tells us that he was tempted in every way that we are. I don’t think that most of us have ever thought deeply about that. We read about his temptations in Matthew 4, but we don’t see any temptations beyond that listed in the Bible. I believe that he was tempted to lust after women, to steal, to lie, to cheat, to do things that would make life easier for him. I am tempted with those things and so is the rest of humanity.
Temptation is a part of our daily lives. The good news is that God understands our weaknesses as humans because Jesus did time as a human. I don’t understand prison life because I have never been there but someone who has been will understand the harsh realities of prison life . . . because they have been there.
Jesus has been there as a human being! He understands our weaknesses and frailties.
Because Jesus understands he is able to give mercy and compassion. He is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. He is able to come alongside us and help us carry the burden. He is able to pray for us because of his vast knowledge of the human experience.
The things I have experienced in my life bring me an understanding so that I can comfort, help and guide others who are facing similar experiences. However, I have found myself out of my league when dealing with someone who has gone through something I have never experienced. I have no point of reference. I have no understanding.
Jesus isn’t like that though. Somehow, during his time on earth, he managed to experience all that comes against humanity. I don’t think that he experienced every single little temptation that we do, like the temptation to smoke a cigarette. But I think that the basic temptations of life were experienced by Jesus. I believe that Jesus dealt with things that are related to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life (1 John 2:16).
I believe that our entire temptations boil down to a few basic temptations, such as the need to feel loved, the need for acceptance, the need to feel validated, etc. I believe we all do things for a reason. Every time we do something wrong, there is usually a deeper reason for it. I believe that Jesus’ temptations were in the areas of trying to fill needs within his life that would replace his dependency upon God. That’s simply my opinion and it would make a great discussion but that’s for another time.
Jesus did time for me as a fellow human being. I wonder when Jesus realized that He was the Son of God. I wonder if he felt the limitations of humanity. I wonder if he was ever tempted to use his abilities as God to get himself out of situation. I know that in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of his betrayal and arrest he appealed to God for deliverance. He admitted that he could call down angels to fight his battle but he didn’t. He accepted the mission of death.
I don’t believe that Jesus looked at his time as earth as “doing time.” When you love someone you will go to whatever lengths necessary to help them. That’s what Jesus did for humanity.
The Creator became the created. God became man. The Son became a son. Life experienced death. Jesus did time for me and you. He is the man that “did time” for all of us.
All of my life I have heard Christians talk about the unconditional love of God. I’ve heard, and even spoken, about the love of God being without conditions, while people tend to love with conditions. As I think about love and what love really is, I have come to an understanding that “unconditional love” is really an oxymoron.
If love comes with conditions then it is really not love. Love has to be without conditions or else it becomes manipulation.
God does love us without conditions because He is love. Love is to be the standard by which all people will know who the true followers of Jesus are. Jesus tells his first followers to love others as He had loved them.
Think about a parent. Good parents do not love their children with conditions. They love them without conditions. They love their children, not for what they do or don’t do, but for who they are. They don’t love their children in spite of their children. They simply love their children because they are part of them.
Yet, I see so many people within the body of Christ that are better parents to their kids than what they believe God is to them. They will love their kids without conditions, yet somehow believe that God conditionally loves them.
Imagine your child coming to you and saying, “Dad, I know I am so unworthy of your love. I am just a worm. I am just a sinner that doesn’t even deserve to live under your roof. Dad, I am so undeserving of your love.” You’d probably flip out and ask what drugs they had been doing. You would not stand for such nonsensical talk. You would correct them and make sure they knew that your love for them has nothing to do with what they do or don’t do.
Why do we treat our children that way, yet feel God treats us differently? Why do we believe that God gives us a standard to live by but doesn’t live by that standard Himself? Many Christians seem to believe that God is a “do as I say, not as I do” kind of parent. God expects us to forgive others, even if they don’t ask for it, yet many Christians don’t believe that God will forgive unless you confess and repent. God says that we are to keep no records of wrong, yet many Christians believe that God is keeping an account of all our sins.
Now I know that some would argue that He is God Almighty and He can do what He wants. That is true, but I don’t see that manifested in Jesus, who is the perfect image of the Father. In Jesus, I see a God that is loving, kind compassionate and merciful. I also see a God that is tough on religion, pride, hypocrisy and people unwilling to forgive. In Jesus I see a God that would rather forgive and die for his enemies than to live without them.
That is love without conditions. That is what true love is.
True love is always concerned with the other person’s well-being, value and happiness. True love is being willing to put someone else’s needs before our own. True love is always without conditions.
If we believe that God loves us with conditions then how do we know what those conditions are? Some would say that God loves us when we obey. If that’s the case then we need to stop telling “sinners” that Jesus loves them and wants to save them. That would not be true because they are not obeying God.
If we believe that God loves us when we are living right, then wouldn’t that make us worthy of God’s love because somehow we are earning his love by doing what he wants?
If I can do something to make God love me then I become worthy of his love because of my actions. That’s not love . . . that’s reward. Unfortunately that is how many people give out their love….as a reward for other people’s right behaviors.
I don’t love my wife or kids because of what they do. I love them because they simply are! Even when my kids are rebellious, testing boundaries and my patience, I still love them without conditions. I will not stop loving them because of what they do or don’t do.
Love is an emotion that we feel, but more importantly, it’s a choice we make. We love people because we see the value in them. You don’t love what you don’t value.
God values us as His creation, and as His children. Therefore, he loves us. Our value is determined by him not us, our actions or even our right believing. God can love us unconditionally because He places great value on who we are to Him.
I can love others unconditionally when I see their value over their actions. To love with conditions doesn’t benefit the person I am “trying” to love. It only benefits me as the person does what I want in order to get my love. It’s manipulation and it’s not love.
God’s love is never manipulative. His love is perfect and unconditional because He is love and he is the standard of what true love is. May we truly learn to love others as Jesus has loved us.
