Gianormous Grace

I have a hard history with my dad. I hesitate to write about this. I would never want people to think badly of my dad, or to think that I don't love him. At the same time, I can't keep conceal the work God's doing in my life because it's so powerful. My parents got a divorce when I was really little: about five. The long of the short is my dad cheated on my mom and left. It's really painful feeling like "If my own dad would leave me, then who could love me?" Since I've felt really hurt by my dad I've struggled to forgive him. Which I want to acknowledge right now as something I believe is sin and brokenness on my part. Something I'm trusting God for this year--I wrote it down in my journal and everything--is truly forgiving my dad. I've found that as I move towards this, I am beginning to feel God's forgiveness extended to me. The more I forgive my dad, the more I understand God's unconditional love for me. The other day I was on my way to work and I was asking God to help me forgive my dad. I said, "I forgive my dad," by faith. At this moment I understood how crazy it is that God knows all our sins and he lets us off scot free. My righteousness comes from Christ. Since I accepted his payment for my sin, when God looks at me he sees the righteousness of Christ despite my usually-not-that-great actions. I think the hardest thing about forgiving my dad is that there is pain involved. Pain is a funny thing. It can keep you from thinking logically. It can block your vision of things you know to be true and pure and right. It's harder to forgive sin when you're personally acquainted with the suffering it caused. Lightbulb. Jesus is personally acquainted with the pain of my sin via the cross! When he was on the cross, every sin was laid on him. That was excruciating. The father turned his face away from Christ (because our perfect God could not look on or be in communion with sin) and his perfect union with his father was broken. I caused Jesus to feel deep hurt. Yet he still forgives me. I feel more whole because I'm forgiving my dad. I'm letting go of the things that hold me back. I can experience God's love the way he has been waiting to show it to me.

Luke 6:37 says:
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven."

I think this is about the sensation I'm experiencing. Forgiving and being forgiven go hand in hand. If we're holding people to our own standards rather than God's, we are inadvertently holding ourselves to these standards as well. I want to live under the grace of the gospel, and to look at other people in light of that too.

Some songs that are helping me to get this knowledge from my head to my heart "This Love is Free" Hyland, "Brokenness Aside" All Sons and Daughters, and "7X70" by Chris August. I think my soul responds best to music. It's the nature of souls. Spend time meditating on who God is and the system He set up for us to live under. It'll change you world.