A New Way to Engage With God’s Promises

This promise has been one of my life-lines in my most painful losses. Engaging with this promise in the past has looked a little something like this: Get hit with a painful betrayal, a devastating event, a deep loss. Quote the promise. Move on, trying to be about God’s business, doing all the right things as far as it depends on me.

That is how I grew up understanding the promise. It wasn’t until I started hearing people complaining about spiritual bypassing and slapping verses on problems like Band-Aids that I started digging deeper into how I might have been missing out on more depth to the promises.

As anyone who has children knows, a decent parent does not leave their little ones to tend to their own wounds, getting their own Band-Aids. I didn’t know that’s what I was doing to myself with God’s promises. Somehow I learned to grab those promises separated from the connected, relational parent God wanted to be for me.

This key verse is preceded by a passage in Romans 8 about us being God’s adopted children, calling him Abba, Daddy. It alerted me to a piece I have been missing. I have been interacting with his promises as an independent, grown adult rather than from the place of being his child. How would I interact with his promise differently if I did it from a place of a small child with him as my involved Dad?

I sensed God inviting me to engage with his promise in a new way. With him, as opposed to separated from him. To do so he prompted me to picture my own little toddler hurting herself on the playground. She would come running to me the moment she was hurt. She would tell me all about her hurt, I would hold her, rock her, let her cry. I would let her show me and I would acknowledge the wound, the pain involved and that would be the sole thing happening that specific moment in time. She would get seen. She would get heard. She would be getting comfort. And even then, I would probably not reach for a Band-Aid yet. I might get some disinfectant and a wipe to clean her up. Only after all that would I finally reach for a Band-Aid and gently place it on her.

God’s promises are not meant to be slapped on our pain like I had been doing. Gods’ promises are supposed to comfort and encourage, not cover up prematurely. I have gotten really careful about telling others in their struggle and pain that God will work it all out for good. After all, did Jesus tell Martha and Mary when they were in the depths of their pain over Lazarus’ death that they should not cry because he was going to work it all out for good? No, even though he knew that that is exactly what he was going to do. Instead, he was just with them, crying too. I did not see this piece for a long time. His promises are still true. But I recognize that there is grace for compassion and empathy for the pain and the emotion of the moment. Snapping out of it does not need to be the first order of business. Taking time to validate the pain takes nothing away from the truth and potency of the promise that still stands.

When things go wrong, I hold off slapping that Band-Aid on. I give myself permission to be God’s little toddler. Even though in my logic, grown up self I know that God will work all things out for my good, I also know God knows when I am hurting, that the first thing that happens is that I revert back to a childlike state where all that matters is the pain. He is not faulting me for feeling the pain and being temporarily off line. He meets me there.

So I come to God with the thing that happened, the injustice, the pain, the loss. I tell him all about how it feels. I feel safe to fully feel it in its all-encompassing overwhelm, unafraid to be judged for being emotional. He has got me and is bigger than my temporarily limited perspective of things. When I am done telling him all about the anger, the sadness, the pain, the fear of how overwhelming it feels, I then focus on who he is for me. Maybe he rocks me. Maybe he sings me a soothing song. I listen for how he feels about me being in pain. I let him acknowledge how painful it is. I yield to his leading. If the wound needs washing out, I trust him to attend to it. Almost naturally I remember how powerful he is, infinitely creative in making everything better. It’s almost like a game then, like he is inviting me to start looking for how he is turning this injustice into something beneficial for me. Before I know it, I am off, running back to play, looking forward to seeing how when I next pause, I will suddenly notice something good there, where I could not possibly have imagined anything good emerging just a moment earlier.

Learning promises is great. Applying and appropriating promises is more than just memorizing them though. I am so grateful that God is more caring than the best parent on earth.

I have started a document where I log the hard things I have come to him with over time. I write out a prayer of thanks for working things out even while I can’t comprehend anything good being in the making. Occasionally I return to this document and I ask him to help me see if some good things have already come from that moment of suffering or loss. I have discovered some amazing good things as I do this. And the best thing is, I think those are just happy ‘added in for good measure’ benefits. I think God is still putting the finishing touches on many of my most painful circumstances. I know this, because I also remember another promise he has made: that he will far outdo what I can ask, think or imagine!

Please let me know in the comments how you engage with his promises!