E Is For Embrace

When we cease from the battle of trying to think well of ourselves and turn to God in complete nakedness, we will find nothing but acceptance. ~James Bryan Smith

The Enigma of Embrace.

At the tender, if volatile, age of  three, one of my sons acquired super powers.

In the late afternoon when my wits were already fading, he’d abandon his mild-mannered cheer, don a defiant-boy cape, and demolish every parental line in the sand.

The sweet compliance every tired mommy longs for crumbled under classic preschooler tantrums in response to my every NO. Time-outs and threats accomplished little, he was clever enough to argue his way past my jaw-clenched frustration.

One day, a strange idea penetrated my fogged-in brain.

Sitting on the floor beside my son’s screaming outrage, I pulled him into my lap. Stiff, unbending he struggled to be free, but I firmly held him close, rocking. Within minutes I could feel his little body relax as he snuggled into my embrace, his tears dry, his sunny smile restored.

I sat for a while, cuddling his soft warmth and marveled at this perplexing truth:

Sometimes the last thing I want to give is the only thing the other person really needs.

God knows this better than I do. You think preschoolers pull tantrums? Read through the sickening slide show of Genesis 4-11. Murder, petty revenge–paranoid humanity boasting of evil, mocking goodness, wildly rejecting everything they’ve been given. God is horrified. Even with a restart through Noah, chapter 11 ends with a fallen tower of human hubris, our ancient relatives exposed, exiled, entangled in ego-centrism.

They were looking for love, for divine acceptance, in all the wrong places. They found alienation instead.

The Grand Embrace

Only a dozen chapters into the story, God has the choice to give up on the human project, but he does something peculiar instead. Through Abraham, God will reveal his breath-taking intention to sit on the floor and pull humanity into his embrace.

His eyes wide open to the very worst we have done, God won’t wait for us to be good. His lap is big enough for every bit of our baggage. There’s room for every cranky child.

Rest in that truth for a moment. You are not rejected, but embraced. The voice of this age claims you are not worth it–you’re dispensable, disposable, and unlovable as you are. The Bible claims the opposite. As the story unfolds, God won’t give us what we deserve. At great cost to himself, he will give us the only thing we ever really needed.

Have you accepted God’s perplexing embrace?

In our series, An Alphabet Adagio, we are savoring the story of the Bible, our story, alphabetically. You can subscribe to e-mail above so you won’t miss a letter. Next: F is for Faith.

Photography by Melanie Hunt