Repentance, WHAT???

Heidi is 11 and is wanting to start texting on her iPod.  This whole technology thing is tough to navigate with kids (can I get an amen!).  In the counseling world, I have seen some really horrible things that come from kids not handling the freedoms that come with technology very well.  And let's be honest, some pretty horrible things come from adults too.  

We are trying to navigate that whole thing with our precious mostly innocent daughter.  One of our family phrases is, “With freedom comes responsibility.”  We try to celebrate growing up and the freedoms that come with it.  While also making a big deal about the responsibilities attached it. You’ll think we’re crazy but, for Heidi’s 5th birthday she got a cool new booster seat.  Ya know the ones that lift the child higher and just use a seat belt to buckle.  She was so stinking excited when she opened that seat.  We celebrated the freedom and “big girlness” of it while also explaining that it was now her responsibility to buckle her own seat belt.  We try to do something similar each year.  We get her a gift that brings freedom and responsibility.  Hence, the texting!  Ugh.

So we talked about how easy it is to get into a pickle when texting.  And how easy it is to hide stuff. Long story short, we decided that the responsibility attached to texting at this age is to not be secretive.  We came up with a little plan.  For a couple months she is going to practice not “hiding” things.  She wanted to feel like she was good at “keeping things in the light” so she could prove she could handle her new freedom.  (We got to talk about creating pathways in the brain and how we develop new habits and they’re really hard to do a first.  But, the more you make a rut in that spot in your brain, the better the habit gets.  I kind of love that stuff).

Heidi has been confessing all kinds of stuff.  None of it has been big stuff at all.  (She would be embarrassed if I told that stuff publicly, so I won’t.)  Something really interesting has been happening though.  Every time she tells us something new, we seem to get closer to each other. I have been careful to not make her feel guilty or condemn her when she confesses some little transgression she has kept to herself.  It’s clear as she tells me each thing that she has already punished herself and has a broken heart from it.  All she needs from me is the affirmation that I still love her and approve of her. That I am not ashamed of her at all, that I totally understand. Then I toss out a little piece of advice for the future.  (Listen, I get this mothering thing wrong a whole whole whole lot of the time.  I think this one is going right for the moment because there is a bigger lesson involved).

A couple weeks ago Brent and I did a lesson with our GoKids class at church about the prodigal son.  You know the story.  The younger brother gets restless and decides to go ahead and ask for his inheritance from his father.  He goes and blows it and messes up a whole lot.  He hits rock bottom when he is working in a pig pen starving and wanting to eat the pig slop.  He realizes just how dumb he has been.  He is broken.  He is sorry.  He has a heart of repentance.  This is the moment that he changes.  

He returns to his father hoping to just work as a servant.  Instead, his father embraces him.  He loves him, approves of him, doesn’t lecture him.  He throws a big party celebrating his return.

There is a part to this that I have missed for years!  And, it is solving one of the biggest confusions I have had about God and the Bible.

Most of my life I have been really confused by the whole “you’ll have to give an account for your life” thing in the Bible.  At some point in my childhood, I was taught that one day God would read off a list of all the bad things I had done and I would have to feel shame and guilt of each one.  I would have to tell him I’m sorry over and over before I could get into heaven.  So, I would try to remember every bad or wrong thing I did throughout the day and confess it so that maybe I wouldn’t have to re-confess in eternity one day.  

As I’ve gotten older and experienced God more and more and His Word, His Love, His Truth, something about that just didn’t make sense.  I know that God is Holy and that He is Truth and Justice.  I also now that He is Love and Grace and Hope.  

That Sunday morning, it hit me.  The reason why we confess our sins and repent is not to face the shame and guilt of it.  It is to face love and continued approval of our Father.  Confession and repentance is a key to fully understanding the Love of God.  His Love doesn’t change based on our actions.  It is through our brokenness that we are able to experience His Love and Goodness even more.

Jesus says, “Therefore, there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.”  NO… NONE… Hiding in our sin and shame only hurts us and pulls us away from Him.  We just stay in the pig pen even longer.  He knows our hearts.  He knows that we are already broken and yearning for what only He can give.  He gives us Unconditional Love, Approval, and Forgiveness.  And, He tosses out an important life lesson to help us move forward in the future empowered by His Truth and Redemption.

I find myself telling Him the simplest of slip-ups these days.  The Relationship that follows defies logic.  Maybe this is molding me to extend and accept the same Forgiveness to others in my life…  Maybe that is the new Freedom He is teaching me.