Resting in God's Perfect Redemptive Love
Grace, 2nd Congregation
There’s a verse in 1 Peter that describes Christians as a chosen people, and belonging to God as his special possessions. I love this truth now, but for a long time, I never felt specially chosen, or treasured by God. More often than not, I saw myself as a victim of circumstances that were beyond my control.
My life sort of began as an “accident”, my mum was a single mother and she had considered abortion but thankfully did not go through with it. Nevertheless, I was a happy child, growing up in the US with people who love me. But then things started changing.
My mum met my stepdad man and got married, and I felt like the special bond between us was being intruded on, or taken from me. We also had to move back from the US to Singapore. I felt being taken away from a place I knew as home.
I was never was able to process these feelings of grief and loss, and the bitterness in my heart really took root and grew. Years after moving, I struggled, I hated being in Singapore. I didn’t have friends, didn’t want friends, because I never thought anyone could ever understand what I’d been through. I was deeply discontent with my life and angry that things had been taken from me against my will. I hated that I never had any control. So, I resolved to be self-sufficient and decided I couldn’t rely on anyone or anything because there was always a risk of me losing it.
Growing up in a Christian environment, I knew God existed but I doubted his character—whether he was trustworthy. I really struggled with the idea that God was good, and he cared about me, because I didn’t feel taken care of. If He loved me, why let all these bad things in my life? In my mind, he was there in the sky somewhere but kind of irrelevant— I still needed to make things happen on my own.
So I worked hard at my sports and my studies, and at being popular and attractive by society’s standards.
But at the same time, I was getting tired, slowly, of having to keep up these standards of “having it all”. When you succeed, you might feel accomplished for a while. But when you’re the only one holding your life together, you can’t stop, and you can’t fail, because if you do, then you’ll lose everything.
One day, in my university years, my mum was attending a Christian conference in Bali and I tagged along, not intending to go for the talks but just to enjoy the beach and the hotel. But I happened to sit in for one talk, and then another, and another. I was so taken by it. My main takeaway was there are good reasons and arguments for how we can know certain truths about the Christian God, even if we don’t necessarily FEEL it in our hearts at every moment. And over the next few months, I read more into it. I started reading the Bible.
I started to see that I was effectively trying to give my life value and meaning from the things I was doing and it was exhausting, and unsustainable. So I began to pray, tentatively, “Ok, God, maybe I can’t do this by myself. But if you are the perfect father, then show me, because I don’t see it now.” It wasn’t an overnight change, but when I started asking for his help, and stopped struggling to do it all on my own, He started to chip away at my hardened exterior, and uncovered that all I really wanted was to be loved, and taken care of. I didn’t want to do it all by myself, I only did it because I thought I had to.
Over time, God patiently answered my questions about his trustworthiness by showing me the person of Jesus. He is the God who created the universe and relinquished power and control to show His love for us. His stepping down into our world tells us that he is able to identify with our pain. So how do I know I can trust him? Because Jesus chose to suffer, here, with us and for us.
He can hold my hand as I’m walking through dark times, and say, “I know how you feel. It hurts, and it sucks.”
He can say with full conviction, “I know what it’s like not to fit in, Grace”, because he didn’t either. He knows what it’s like to be betrayed by friends, and misunderstood by his own family, and to have his father turn away from him because he went through those same things. Jesus endured these things and died on the cross, even though he didn’t deserve any of these. We fall into pride and stubbornness, unforgiveness and bitterness. Out of our sinful nature, we cause suffering and endure it ourselves but Jesus suffered even though he was perfect and blameless. He died to take our brokenness upon himself and to forgive the great cost of the wrong things that we’ve done and continue to do.
Jesus came to do the one and only thing that matters to someone going through pain—to be with us and to take our sins and brokenness upon himself. But he did not stop there. Easter is a celebration that Christ overcame sin and death. He rose again from the grave to give us a hope and a future. There is redemption power in his love for all sinners and sufferers. In Christ and his love for us, I found somewhere safe and firm where I could finally rest. God’s love is a perfect love, and there’s nothing like it in this imperfect world, and it’s so foreign to us that when we see it, we don’t know what to do— we shy away from it out of fear of the unknown or we don’t trust it because it’s too good to be true.
But it’s not too good to be true. It can be understood, and it can be experienced. I believe if you ask Him for his help, He’ll help you understand His love for you. He will heal you, and he will make you whole. Today, will you consider trusting in Jesus to do that for you?