“The world is full of men who want to be right, when actually the secret of a man's strength and his pathway to true honor is his ability to admit fault when he has failed. God wants to fill the church with men who can say they are wrong when THEY ARE WRONG. A man who is willing to humble himself before God and his family and say:"I was wrong." will find that his family has all the confidence in the world in him and will much more readily follow him. If he stubbornly refuses to repent or admit he was wrong, their confidence in him and in his leadership erodes.”
― Jim Anderson, Unmasked: Exposing the Cultural Sexual Assault
It was very early in the morning, not much traffic on the road, when the Lord whispered to me in that still small voice. Months ago a friend and I spent a lot of time discussing God's tone. We had heard a speaker say, "What if it was not a big booming voice that said I AM, but what if He whispered it?" This changes everything. What if He did not explode in a demanding tone, "BE HOLY AS I AM HOLY." Some versions of the Bible have these words in CAPS. What if He whispered these words. Honestly, they are stronger to me when whispered, because they are an invitation to be like Him. He gives us free will and draws us in. He uses the example of a shepherd who leads the sheep instead of driving cattle. So on this foggy cold morning, when many hadn't even been to bed yet, I was getting up and driving to a friends where five us were about to set out on a road trip. This was a trip to a church 12 hours away where we knew God had selected the five of us to go, because He had an experience for us. In that darkness as I was driving He whispered, "Repent." I knew what He was saying immediately.
The enemy wants us to see Him as this big demanding, judgmental "I see everything you do and I'm waiting to send you to hell" God. What if He is asking us, "Repent, please change your mind, your attitude on this particular subject." If our child was standing on the edge of a pit of fire and about to fall in, fear would most likely take over and we would most likely yell "GET BACK!" and honestly we could scare them so badly they could fall in. But God is not scared. He knows and sees all. I believe He is saying, "Step away from the danger and change your course.
When I was talking to a friend about this, he reminded me of Elijah hiding in the cave in 1 King 19 and God asks, What are you doing here?" He knows Elijah is hiding. He knows fear is controlling Elijah's actions. He doesn't show up in the wind or the earthquake or the fire, no God speaks to him in that still small voice and basically says, Put fear aside, change your direction and go. Change your attitude, your belief, change your direction, instead of deeper in the cave go forth to do My will and don't sit in the regret of what has happened, just go. Repent? We have made this into an ugly scary HUGE thing, when really as I see it He just wants us to see truth. So if we believe the lie that we are worthless, because the enemy has been pounding it into our heads since conception, will God yelling, "YOU ARE NOT WORTHLESS." convince us we have value? I don't think so. To change our beliefs about this lie and come to believe our life has value, a whisper would be more convincing to me. Then comes the sorrow for believing the lie and acting on it.
I am not saying that God does not get angry or discipline. He has spoken firmly and clearly to me and I knew it was a time when I needed to listen and not argue. Some people don't believe this can be God. I knew it was. In a recent post I told of a curse He told me to break and I argued. The next thing I had a full size Buck slam into the side of my car. My mirror, for looking back, was completely busted off the car. I repented. Why? Because I knew how serious He was. He did not want me lining up with the lie. I was sorry, not as much for not wanting to break the curse, but what really broke me was that He had better for me and I was refusing it, I was limiting Him, I had Him in a box. I broke the curse, asked forgiveness and then had a very valuable conversation with the Holy Spirit. I changed my heart and my mind and became willing to align with God's will in this area. God wants more for us, He wants us to have all He has for us, but so many of us get stuck. I had a pastor yell at me to repent. I knew enough about him, that his words were offensive, YOU are telling ME to repent? Don't we lead by example? That night driving in the fog, God reminded me of that moment how little impact his words had on me because of who I saw when I looked at him. BUT, God also reminded me of the many times through healing where people I trust said to me in a normal voice, "You will have to repent for that." then they exposed the lie I was believing, the damage it had done to my life and walked me through changing my belief and attitude. Repentance was not a scary thing, it was freeing, it was empowering, and humbling all at the same time.
I believe when we see our error and admit to it and we are transparent about it, we have more success in leading others to repentance. Those who have led me through it, I have seen do it freely and openly in front of others. Power is in our testimony. God's greatest commandment is to love Him, our neighbor and ourselves. Forgiveness, repentance, and obeying are all apart of that. This is another example of the enemy trying to hide the Truth from us.
“But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God's love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin to be sincere. His sincerity is based on confidence, not in his own illusions about himself, but in the endless, unfailing mercy of God.”
― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
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