Worth more than our mistakes . . .

I recently heard a story that ties in with a devotional book that I'm reading right now.

Several years ago, a family experienced the death of their husband/father.  Afterwards, while going through the man's belonging, the family found, not just one, but several copies of Francine Rivers' novel Redeeming Love.

The family laughed at first.  Redeeming Love?  Seriously?  That's something a woman would read.  Why in the world would our father/husband have even one copy of Redeeming Love, let alone several?

They stopped laughing when they heard what Paul Harvey would call "the rest of the story".

Many years ago, this husband's wife had an affair.  Several people encouraged the husband to leave her.  After all, isn't adultery grounds for divorce?  

He didn't leave.  Instead, he and his wife reconciled, and they spent many years together before his death. 

During this period of time, the husband discovered Francine Rivers' Redeeming Love.

Redeeming Love is a retelling of the Biblical story of Hosea.  In the Bible, Hosea is a prophet, living around 750 B.C., who is told by God to go and marry an adulterous woman.  So he goes and marries a woman named Gomer.  Some scholars believe that she was a prostitute. 

Why did God tell Hosea to marry a prostitute?  To illustrate the relationship that Israel had with God--that of an adulterous wife who'd left the husband who loved her . . . and to illustrate the God who still loved Israel and who desired a relationship with her, even though she had wandered away from him and was serving other gods.

Instead of Israel in 750 B.C., Redeeming Love is set in 1850's California, and tells the story of Angel, a prostitute, and Michael Hosea, the man told by God to marry her.  The book follows their relationship; Angel, cold and hardened from her time as a prostitute; and Michael, determined to love her no matter what. 

Francine Rivers wrote this book after her conversion to Christianity, calling it her "statement of faith".  She'd been a romance writer before she became a Christian.  After her conversion, she turned her talents towards Christian fiction.  (Side note:  I have read Redeeming Love and another book of hers, The Atonement Child.  I recommend them both highly.)

Why did this husband/father have multiple copies of a romance novel, albeit a Christian romance novel?

His reasoning:   He wanted his wife to know that she was worth more than the mistakes she had made.

Isn't that the message of the Gospel, illustrated by the book of Hosea?  That we are worth more than our mistakes?  That we are worth more than our sin?  That God, in the person of Jesus--just like Hosea the prophet, just like Michael Hosea in Redeeming Love--believes that we are worth more than the mistakes we make, than the sins we have committed? 

This is the same God that cries out, in Hosea 11:8, How can I give you up?  How can I hand you over? to an Israel that has turned away from Him. 

The husband in the story I heard about couldn't turn away his wife.  In the end, his love won her over.  He saw beyond her unfaithfulness, just as God sees beyond our sin.  He saw her worth and value as God's child, just as God sees our worth and value as His children.

Because it is not our mistakes that determine our ultimate value.

That is the message of God, of Hosea, of Redeeming Love, and of this husband to this wife.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

 

Worship Wednesday: The Hills We Die On

I find it interesting, in Christianity, the hills we choose to die on.

There's instrumental music (a major issue in the Churches of Christ, where I worship), baking cakes for gay couples, issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, whether or not the earth is young or old, what constitutes "modest" dress . . . and I'm sure, if give enough time, I could fill an entire page front to back with similar issues.

People argue back and forth, bicker, gossip, name call, and--in extreme cases--disfellowship or excommunicate over some of these issues.

There are hills we need to die on in Christiandom . . . but I wonder if, in our desire to defend the positions we hold, we're neglecting the greater matters of Christianity.  I'm reminded of the Scripture in Matthew 23:23, where Jesus says to the Pharisees:  "Woe to you, you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You give a tenth of your spices--mind, dill and cumin.  But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness.  You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former."

In I Corinthians 8, Paul addresses the question of food sacrificed to idols.  Instead of laying down the law, that "no, you should not", or "yes, you can," he starts first with the concept that "knowledge puffs up while love builds up."  He goes on to explain that an idol was "nothing at all in the world" and that "there is no God but one".

But then he reminds them that some people are "still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled."

Paul says that "food does not bring us near to God . . . be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak."  He ends the chapter with an appeal to the Corinthian Christians to not cause their weak brother or sister to fall into sin.

His emphasis in this case was not in laying down the law--in providing a law that would tell them what to do or not to do--but rather, in how you treat and respect each other.

Paul spends a lot more time talking about how Christians should treat others rather than the "laws" or "beliefs" we should follow.  Come to think of it, so did Jesus.  Both of them did have principles they emphasized--"Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength," "Love your neighbor as yourself", "Love one another as I have loved you," "Love does no harm to its neighbor," "Hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil".

Maybe, if we start there, we can figure out what hills we need to die on.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.