I want to tell you about another treasure, radiant and glorious, that broke through my darkness with startling clarity one recent morning in this ongoing stormy season of my life. God does not waste suffering, as He is always working for the good of those who love Him. As difficult as these past few weeks and months have been, the Lord is teaching me things I would never learn otherwise. These words God spoke through Isaiah really resonate with me: “I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name” (Isaiah 45:3).

What is this priceless treasure? It is God’s grace. I will attempt to explain this deeper revelation of His all-sufficient grace He is teaching me in the darkness.

There is a person who is very dear and near to my heart who has no filter. I think we all know people like this. They say what is on their mind with no socially acceptable regard for the audience. They can be rude, shocking, disrespectful, and embarrassing. At the same time, they are usually hypersensitive, and want, like all of us, just to be loved and accepted and wrapped in the warmth and affection of friendship and family, unaware of the fact that their words and actions actually repel what they crave the most. Because of my deep love for this person, it breaks my heart to see this relational dynamic with its accompanying, seemingly self-imposed, pain and suffering.

The other morning when I was pouring out my heart to God about all of this, Jesus seemed to whisper to me, “Lisa, this is why I came. What you see in your loved one, as if he is turned inside out with all of his frayed, torn seams exposed, is really no different than what’s inside of each of you. What you and others see in him, I see in you all. You are all frayed, torn, and broken. The ugliness you see is the ugliness I came to redeem.” I was reminded of Jesus’s words when He said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:16-17)

Wow! Now some of you may not like hearing this! But it is the gospel truth, revealed to me in a way I’ve never quite comprehended before, and in a way I would never have understood without the present pain. Journey with me as I share below from God’s Word and commentary in an attempt to describe God’s grace. We first must understand that God sees what no one else sees. The parts of ourselves we conceal—even from ourselves–are not hidden from the eyes of God. Here’s what He has to say about the human heart:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person. (Mark 7:20-23)

In light of how God views the human heart, “what is grace? In the New Testament grace means God’s love in action towards men who merited the opposite of love. Grace means God moving heaven and earth to save sinners who could not lift a finger to save themselves. Grace means God sending His only Son to descend into hell on the cross so that we guilty ones might be reconciled to God and received into heaven. ‘For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).’” (Packer, J.I. Knowing God, 226.)

Some of us don’t like to hear that we’re sinners. And I’m sure some of you would not want to admit that in God’s eyes, perhaps you are really no better than that person you may judge outwardly, that person who makes you want to turn and look the other way. Jesus experienced that. His own Father turned away from Him.

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” That is to say, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)…. It has been difficult to understand in what sense Jesus was “forsaken” by God. It is certain that God approved His work. It is certain that He was innocent. He had done nothing to forfeit the favor of God. As His own Son–holy, harmless, undefiled, and obedient–God still loved Him. In none of these senses could God have forsaken Him.

However, Isaiah tells us that “he bore our griefs and carried our sorrows; that he was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities; that the chastisement of our peace was laid upon him; that by his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4-5)…. He was made a sin-offering, and He died in our place, on our account, that He might bring us near to God. It was this, doubtless, which caused His intense sufferings. It was the manifestation of God’s hatred of sin, in some way which He has not explained, that Jesus experienced in that terrible hour. It was suffering endured by Him that was due to us, and suffering by which, and by which alone, we can be saved from eternal death.

In those awful moments, Jesus was expressing His feelings of abandonment as God placed the sins of the world on Him–and because of that had to “turn away” from Jesus. As Jesus was feeling that weight of sin, He was experiencing separation from God for the only time in all of eternity…. Jesus became sin for us, so He felt the loneliness and abandonment that sin always produces, except that in His case, it was not His sin – it was ours. ¹

With a heavy heart I have watched many turn away from this person I’m writing about–my own boy–in his suffering. In spite of the present pain, I am assured that there will be ultimate restoration and redemption, for he belongs to Christ. On a very personal level I am learning more about God’s grace. One day there will be no more tears and no more sorrow. As for today, God’s treasure house is full. He provides strength, endurance, encouragement, and hope. Most of all, God’s presence is with us in the darkness, continually revealing to us unspeakable treasures, so that we may know that He alone is God, and He has called each of us by name. He loves us and meets each of us right where we’re at. We are not forgotten. “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” (Isaiah 49:15-16)

That is what I call amazing grace!

Holding fast,

Lisa

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?

(Isaiah 53:6-8)

¹ (http://www.gotquestions.org/forsaken-me.html)

^{Photography by Evan Kirby}