Context

 

How would you react if someone told you a teenager brought a gun to school? How would you feel about this teenager if a loved one went to that school? What would you think of that teen as a person? Would you want to know him more? And would that change if that teenager was the one telling you the story, not with boasting but as part of his history?

Context matters.

Sometimes context changes the situation, but a lot of times even when the situation doesn't change, context changes our reaction to it. Whether we react in anger, in judgement, with compassion, with confusion, with any spectrum of emotion is largely based on our context. Who is the person? Do we know them or anything about them? How are we hearing the story? Who's telling it? And what circumstances are we in when we hear it?

I had this story unfold for me recently. I met a teen who was sharing his life story, his context, his choices, his hope for the future, and as he shared his poor choices, no one looked on him with judgement or anger but with love and care, asking what hurts he was carrying. And as he shared those hurts candidly, not excusing his choices but making sense of them, love was poured over him. He was offered a place to have life spoken over him. A place that was safe for him. A place that wouldn't reject him based on what had happened to him or even based on what he had done. A place that wanted to see him grow and flourish and live up to the potential God had created in him by pursuing healing from all his pain. A place to keep coming back to no matter what.

And this story is so beautiful to me because context matters for our relationship with God too.

We've made bad choices. Those choices have affected others. We haven't lived up to our potential.

And how does God view us?

Does He see us like we would see a criminal being broadcasted on the news?

Or does He see us like I got to see this boy? Hurt and broken and trying to do better. Full of life. Full of beauty even in the midst of trauma. 

When we think God views us with judgement and disappointment, we crawl deeper into shame where the light of healing is covered up in the darkness we've buried ourselves in.

But when we see God as kind, compassionate, and looking for our best, we don't have to hide.

We can give Him the worst of ourselves, and when we do, He holds us close. He helps us to do better. He seeks our best. And when we fail again, He doesn't reject us but keeps us safe beside Him. He gives us a place--a person--to keep coming back to no matter our successes or our failures.

When we are in Christ, the debt has been paid. There is now no condemnation. 

Our sin is still dark, but we come to God with the context of salvation, restoration, adoption. We come to a Father Whose love pours out over us. 

I'm so thankful for this experience of seeing love poured out over a boy who would be so quickly labeled as "bad, trouble-maker, criminal." To instead see him as cherished. To see someone whose future would be looked on as hopeless and to instead see potential for greatness and goodness. I was so blessed by meeting this boy whose life is full of tragedy and bad choices done to him and made by him, and I don't know if I will see him again, but I want his best. I see brightness in his future, and though that brightness will take a lot of healing to reach, the stumbles and falls don't blot it from his horizon.

We get to see others the way God sees us, but we so often fail to view broken people with the same context with which God views us. Too often this is because we fail to see the evil of our own sin or because we expect God to see us with the judgement that so often marks human reactions.

I'm thankful for this picture of how we are before God. Condemned by our choices and yet freed by His love and care to have a brighter future. We have a God Who loves us and cherishes us and wants our best. And when we fail, He wraps Himself around us and speaks life into us. 

We never need fear bringing Him our shortcomings because He longs to heal every pain and every mistake. The believer's context is always that of love, so we can go before God with boldness, knowing that He will restore us and that He cares for us in each step of that process. 

Our context matters, and our context is the forgiveness and redemption of the cross.