Grappling with Grace…
June 11th, 2010
http://blog.findingbalance.com/

Hey FINDINGbalance Friends! I just returned from Fb’s amazing Hungry for Hope Conference in Colorado Springs. If you didn’t attend this year, be very sorry you didn’t and get your behind there next year! It is for sure something NOT to be missed! Hopefully, there will be some sort of re-cap, photos, and maybe even downloads available from our fearless leader Constance soon

All of us who were at HFH were blessed to hear John Lynch speak. If you haven’t heard him speak, you need to.

If you haven’t read his book or gone to his website TrueFaced, you need to.

This past winter my Bible Study chose a book on grace for Bible Study. Something like “Lord we need Grace to get through the day.” We chose it because we all longed to understand this word grace better in our daily lives. It unfortunately didn’t deliver or offer the kind of radical understanding of grace we longed for. The book didn’t shed any new light for any of us and we ditched it halfway through.

Maybe I will never understand this enigma of a word. I thought.

Maybe we aren’t meant to really comprehend it until heaven. I pondered.

Maybe I have to clean up my act to really understand grace. I also scolded.

Then John Lynch spoke on this subject last weekend and I felt the scales of confusion fall off my eyes. I am not sure if I can accurately even explain what he said, or really what I heard. But what I took away from it all was this…

God’s Grace is bigger than my sin.

Bigger than my failures.

Bigger than my theologically confused mind.

I knew this and had heard it before, but for some reason this time it hit my heart. To understand grace is necessary to live in this life as a believer. To really really look at it, touch it, feel it, and taste it. It is OURS for the taking! If we are willing to receive it.

The question I grapple with is, “what if I believe it? What if I believe that when Jesus said, My Grace is sufficient…he meant it?”

2 Corinthians 12:9 “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”’

Or how about Deuteronomy 31:8 “The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

He meant it. Nawwww I think. Too dangerous to believe this 100%! To really depend on this. Awww, but that is what faith is!

To rest in this every day, to be able to really live out FROM this verse. That would only be possible with the power from JC!

Don’t confuse this. This doesn’t mean believing it and then not having needs, but more importantly resting in this room of grace and starting to live FROM it. To spring up from the grace that God gives me everyday and then give it to others. Hmmmn good thoughts and prayers to chew on. Stuff I am chewing on right now.

Then to end his talk John read something called, “The New Testament Gamble.” It is in his book TrueFace that I highly recommend.

I have taken liberty to change the words “they” to “you”…to make it more personal. It is one of the most accurate and understandable descriptions of grace I have ever heard and understood. I hope you enjoy it like I do!

May your eyes open with God’s grace every day and may your head rest on the pillow of God’s grace every night!

Lee

From TrueFaced

“We discover in The Room of Grace that the almost unthinkable has happened. God has shown all of his cards. He reveals a breathtaking protection that brings us out of hiding. In essence, God says, “What if I tell you who you are? What if I take away any element of fear in condemnation, judgment, or rejection? What if I tell you I love you and will always love you? That I love you right now, no matter what you have done, as much as I love my only son? That there is nothing you can do to make my love go away?

What if I tell you there are not lists? What if I tell you I don’t keep a log of past offenses, of how little you pray, how often you have let me down, made promises that you didn’t keep? What if I tell you …you are righteous with my righteousness, right now? What if I tell you …you can stop beating yourselves up? You can stop being so formal, stiff, and jumpy around me? What if I tell you, I am CRAZY about you!”

To read the rest of the New Testament “Gamble” you will have to purchase the book. But, trust me…you won’t be disappointed.

Growing up as a 2nd generation Asian-American Christian, I was brought up in a culture deeply rooted in shame along with a theological framework that is often more shame-driven than grace-driven. In other words, I had to be someone “better” than who I was if I wanted to be accepted and valued by God and by others. Being me wasn’t enough—I had too many flaws, weaknesses, and imperfections.
I was burdened to accomplish and achieve as much as I possibly could. I was determined and motivated to succeed in everything I did whether it was academics, athletics, appearance, relationships, or career. I excelled through college where I earned a Business-Economics degree from U.C.L.A. I excelled in my relationships; and I excelled in my career as an accountant. Even after I stepped away from accounting to pursue a life in occupational ministry, I strove for perfection as a seminary student, as a Pastor, and eventually, even as a husband and father.
Yet no matter how much I accomplished, it was never enough. I was still imperfect.
Then I heard the message of grace. For the very first time I was introduced to the reality that I was indeed “good enough.” I didn’t have to earn God’s love. I didn’t have to work on my imperfections by myself. I was free to be me. I was free to live out of who God says I am.
I discovered a passion to communicate this reality to those who are still burdened and imprisoned by their shame and fear. It’s why, as a Pastor, I love seeing the faces of people when they hear the message for the very first time. I love hearing their responses when they’re awakened to their own struggle with shame and with fear. Most of all, I love the celebration that occurs when we begin to experience grace in our lives, with God and with one another.

I had known for quite a long time that I had a story to write. Too many things had happened to me and evidence of God’s presence and protection was scattered throughout my life, even before I gave my life to Christ. My fear of putting my thoughts on paper for all to read was my excuse. My inability to trust others with who I really am was a monumental stumbling block.

Then John Lynch came to our church and spoke of the masks that we all wear. He spoke of the grace that God was beginning to show me. He was so open and real in sharing about his shortcomings, his failures and his story. It resonated within me on a deep, deep level. I signed up for the TrueFaced study shortly after and I began to choose a different walk.

First I started to write my testimony to share my story with others. The problem was that it refused to be a testimony. Before my eyes it turned a book. It was amazing! From August to December I wrote an entire book. God provided an editor, along with a publisher and the following July Broken became a reality.

As I went through the process of becoming transparent, several things happened. I first realized that God was with me long before I gave my life to him. I learned that he had protected me in my worst moments and that rather than waiting for me to behave, he was waiting for me to turn my life over to him. I also began to realize that in my transparency I could teach other women about grace and about relationship with God.

I began to host captivating studies in my home. I began to host Bible studies. I began to write articles. I led women’s ministry in our church. I became a Christian women’s life coach and began to mentor women over a period of years. I began to write about my relationship with God in a blog. I began to speak publicly and privately to anyone who would listen (and a few who would not) about my Jesus and the hope that he offers.

I have an audacious dream of having a working ranch for battered and abused women and their children. A place where they will come to understand who it is that God intended them to be and to become equipped to fulfill their destinies. I know that God is my dream giver and that all things work together for good to those who are called according to his purpose.

I am so thankful for the Leadership Catalyst/TrueFaced Team, for their willingness to be true-faced and to teach others about the grace of God. It has been life changing for me and for many others. God is not only my Redeemer he is my Restorer. Our God reigns!

I grew up in a home where my father didn’t want me. He told me I was stupid and that I never should have been born. His treatment of me dealt a blow to my self-worth. To make matters worse I thought I had to have my father’s love and acceptance before I could be happy

At the age of 13, I asked Jesus Christ to come into my heart because I feared going to hell. My relationship with my heavenly Father sputtered from the beginning because I could not believe God could love me and accept me. I devalued any positive thing God said about me in His word as I didn’t believe it could be true about me. The result was that I lived a life of trying to earn my earthly father’s love and my heavenly Father’s love. Constantly trying to earn love and approval but never measuring up and never figuring out how to get God and my father to love me led to depression.

At the age of 35, I sat under the teaching of a professor who graciously taught me how God loved and accepted me. He taught me that it was on the basis of what Jesus did, His death and resurrection, which gave evidence of His love for me. There was nothing I could do that would earn that love. I was always acceptable to God because of Jesus!

That teaching went against what I experienced from my earthly father and what my feelings told me. One evening the professor said, “If anyone says something about you and even if you believe it is true, if God doesn’t say it then it isn’t true.”

In the next three weeks I read the Bible cover to cover looking for chapter and verse where God said I was stupid and should not have been born. When I finished, I discovered that God had never said that about me. So now I had a problem…who was I to believe? I remember saying to God, “My father believes I’m stupid and never should have been born. I believe that, but You don’t say that, and from this night forward You are going to be the authority for my life. Not my father, myself, or any other person.” That was the beginning of a transformation in my life as I began the process of getting my identity from God. I am so thankful for the opportunity I had to have been taught God’s Truth.

As I learned to live out my new identity in Christ, I became wonderfully free. I wanted everyone to know God’s love and acceptance and to experience that same freedom. For the past 25 years I have had the privilege of serving on our church staff, as a lay-counselor, helping women to understand who they are in Christ and replacing error with truth. What a joy it has been!

When I came across the TrueFaced materials I was so excited. It was another tool I could use to help people see God’s truth about them. My husband and I taught a class on TrueFaced. I’ve shared the material with a women’s mentoring group as well as with individuals. People still come up to me and say, “I’m fine, just as fine as I can be,” then they smile. It is so exciting to see how God uses it to set people free from the errors they believe. Once we understand grace, it changes everything. It is no longer striving to please God, to earn His love; instead it is living a life of gratitude for all He has done.

It was September of 2004. I had just been given notice that my job of almost 15 years had just been shutdown and along with 300 other personal, I was out of a job. It was only four more months and then I would retire. And I found myself sitting next to my wife in an Oncologist’s office in Castro Valley, California. The term, oncology was no stranger to my thoughts, however it was not a term that I was used to using for describing my health problems…the doctor came in and sat down and began by stating, ”I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The bad news: you’ve got Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL). The good news, it is the slow growing kind and you probably have 5-7 years before you’ll have to take action.” (Eight months later, I would find out that I was in the fourth and last stage of CLL.)
As the news sunk in, I buried my head in my hands, with my eyes closed, and I mentally saw two white clothed arms reach down and with two large hands grasp an hourglass and turn it over for – what seemed to me – to be the last time. I whispered a short prayer asking the Lord: In the time left, what can I do of significance for you? In this exchange with my Lord, I was, and still am, amazed at the calmness that I experienced when I received the news.
This new reality had me reflecting on my life experiences. I was taken from my birth family at the age of 2 ½ years, shortly after my mother had passed away giving birth to her eleventh child. The ensuing years would be filled with verbal and physical abuse. I longed for my birth mother, often crying myself to sleep as sounds of arguing filtered through my bedroom door. Often, there was public embarrassment by my adoptive father and overt criticism of my lack of capacity for achieving good grades in school. I would hear phrases such as, “You dumb bunny, why can’t you be smart like your friends, you will never amount to anything or; I’m embarrassed for you”. These phrases burned deep in my mind. I tried hard to please my parents but each time I was met with, “You can do better than that!” I never heard a “great job” or “we are so proud of you” or for that matter, “we love you”.
This was the past that I struggled with. How do I understand what love and acceptance is? I understood that God was a loving Father, yet I had no earthly example of that love.
It was during the last days of my chemo treatments when I met a facilitator with a group called Healing the Wounded Person (HWP). In this group, the facilitator encouraged me to address the issues relating to my adoptive father. I was encouraged to write my father a letter-even though he was dead as a result of suicide. I struggled for several days. As I was finishing up the letter, a realization struck me; my adoptive parents had stolen the joy of my Salvation and Christian living.
At the end of the HWP I was given a book titled TrueFaced. I found enough energy while still in last days of chemo, to open the book and read. There was so much to absorb that I had to put the book down and work through what I had read. When I read about trusting God instead of pleasing God, tears rolled down my face. I knew that I had masks, created by the past, and I was tired and desperately wanted to be free of trying to please God and everyone else. A burden was lifted from my shoulders that day. The room of grace is now my new abiding place and oh what joy it is to be there.

A late in life surprise has transformed my perspective and lifestyle. From early childhood I had known and experienced the grace of God through salvation in Jesus Christ. Intentionally and with satisfaction to the degree I had been taught about spiritual matters I walked with God. Spiritual disciplines were my guide, instead of using grace as my primary compass.
It wasn’t until midlife when many of life’s experiences had painfully wedged their way into my heart that I was introduced to a grace based approach to all of life. I learned that grace wasn’t just a gift from God but a lifestyle to be practiced in all relationships of life. The TrueFaced teaching on grace was the most enlightening and freeing lesson I had ever heard. The emotional injuries that I thought I had dismissed or resolved from my past surfaced as I listened to welcome messages on grace. Through the TrueFaced messages and the real life stories I saw, for the first time, grace at a horizontal level. Grace and not just good intentions or disciplines was the model for relating to others. I felt the love, freedom and acceptance of grace that is practiced as well as received.
I couldn’t stop the flow of tears triggered by my first encounter and understanding of the joyful freedom of living in grace. The TrueFaced team taught how me to relate to others in grace and not from a performance standard.
My husband and I were starving for more of this grace experience, so since that initial exposure we have continued our pursuit of the meaning and practice of the Truefaced teachings and counsel. We have experienced transformation in our marriage and in our relationships with others. Our perspective has dramatically changed from habits of criticism to more understanding and acceptance of others. We have greater marital harmony and less tension between us. We have been given the perspective and tools to relate in openness and peace with others. We have been set free to be and share who we really are. Our desire is to practice grace as well as be recipients of God’s grace.
Our growth will take the rest of our lives as we relax into God’s arms of grace and live out of the dwelling Christ within. Our spiritual journey started and continued for many years on a performance basis but we look forward to finishing life with grace as our guide in our relationship with the Lord and everyone else.

I remember my early childhood with fondness. It was an idyllic time when neighborhoods were safe and being part of a gang meant being in a gang of kids who played Kick the Can and Run Sheep Run. It was a time without televisions, computers and iPods; a time of family togetherness; listening to the Hit Parade on the radio, having taffy pulls, and summer campouts, in a tent, with none of today’s modern conveniences. Our home was filled with love and laughter and fun.
This perfect life, however, shattered when I was 11 and my mother left our family to pursue another relationship. There was no goodbye or anything that might help ease the shock of this devastating event; my sister and I came home from school one day and Mom was gone. I was distraught by the abandonment, but in my child-like thinking I blamed myself for her leaving: if only I had been a better daughter, my mother would have stayed.
Consequently, the script for my life was written! If I become a perfect person, no one will ever leave me again. I created impossible standards for myself, standards that God never intended for me. I was driven to be the perfect person and any failure was proof of my total lack of virtue and worth. I agonized over something as insignificant as a misspelled word on my grocery list and literally rewrote the list over until it was neat and error free. This impossible standard of living caused me to be judgmental toward others who did not meet my standards of perfection. I was fearful that others might discover my imperfections and if they did, I became defensive.
Undeniably, with these attitudes, I continuously set myself up for failure and rejection. Several failed relationships, the death of two infant sons, and three divorces brought me to a place of absolute brokenness. In this place of deep pain, God began to heal me and in this healing process, He also set me free from the need to perform. Through my incredible loss and pain, I came face to face with the incomprehensible grace of God.
All my attempts at perfection only succeeded in bringing shame and personal disappointment. How could God possibly love someone who failed so continually? In trying to sort through my failures, I sought the help of a counselor. This wise man looked into my pain and saw a heart in desperate need of grace. He introduced me to David Semand’s book, Healing Grace, and as I came face to face with the unconditional grace and love of God, my need for perfect performance slowly began to dissipate.
It was not an overnight healing, but a slow, sweet introduction into my Savior’s loving grace and unconditional acceptance. As I began to grasp the truth that God loved me because I was His child, and that it was impossible for me to do anything to make Him love me more, or less, I began to risk trusting His love. The amazing thing that transpired out of this place of receiving grace was that, as I learned to trust God, I began to trust that others might also love an imperfect me. Slowly, I started being real with a few close friends and to my surprise, they had always known that I wasn’t perfect and they loved me anyway. I spent the next several years learning to walk out the truth of grace and love. Ultimately, grace became the most important ingredient in my life. God then placed me in a ministry of counseling in which I have the wonderful privilege of walking people out of the performance trap (the Room of Good Intentions) into the beautiful Room of Grace (see TrueFaced). This is now my calling: To minister the love and grace of God to a hurting world. I am a steward of the grace He has so freely given me.

I was born into a football family. My dad was (and still is at 79) a football coach. I am the oldest of 5 kids. I grew up loving competition and I really loved to win! I believed the words of Vince Lombardi early on: “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.”
We moved every 2 years. It takes an incredible amount of work to survive in a new school every other year. I worked hard to figure out “the rules” in each new place. Performing well became my only hope of remaining secure.
It didn’t take long to realize I couldn’t perform perfectly or win at everything. So I began to work very hard at being competent at the things I chose to do. If I remained competent, then I was winning. To fail basically meant to lose. And why would I want to lose?
Throughout my early adult years I worked hard at life. I had loved the Lord since I was a young girl. I had a tender heart to others. I did not let people down by unfaithfulness or forgetfulness. I was excellent at executing details (and lots of them at one time). I was a committed mom – a good homemaker. I loved to care for my family and work alongside my husband in our ministry; I grew in my walk with God and my faith.
But every now and then I would hit a “season” (could be for hours, days, or weeks) where I was in a dilemma. I was becoming less sure of who the real me was and my strategy to perform well, not fail, and remain in control was increasingly difficult as life and family became more complex.
My crisis continued to grow. If anything went wrong or even poorly, I assumed it was my fault. Somewhere inside I believed if, and I mean IF, I did everything well, then life for me and those around me would go well (right, perfect). Now that is a very heavy weight to bear, and more control and responsibility than a human being can bear. It is also arrogance – to think that I would even have that much power and control such that life rose and fell with me.
In God’s great grace, through my exposure to TrueFaced/ Leadership Catalyst, I began to learn that humility is trusting God and others with me – the real me. Not the perfect me and not the me with a mask of “I am in control.”
I began to see the untruth in, “If you are weak, you are a failure.” I saw a third option where I had only had 2 before. (Buck up, fight, work hard or let go, fail, and lose.) This third option was to embrace weakness as the path to hope – as God’s invitation to more of Himself. God’s word is full of upside down realities. Could there be hope for my weary soul?
At this time I wrote in my journal, “The more I grow in Christ, the more needy I seem to become. This place of dependence is both remarkably peaceful and satisfying, and absolutely terrifying. You can be remarkably strong and experience a failure. Feeling weak does not mean I am a failure.”
As I chose repentance of my commitment to being strong, in control and performing to earn acceptance and security, I began to taste what my soul longed for – real security, rest, and freedom. I was understanding grace for the first time in my life. And as I did, I began to learn what it meant to extend grace to others.
Today I can still be tempted to earn my favor with God and people. But the truth continues to set me free. The real me is in Christ – accepted and complete in Him. Learning to trust God and others with me is a relief!

I grew up in a Christian home, and have been involved with a church my entire life.  Early on I learned how to behave really, really well.  I learned to be good kid.  I went to church every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night.  What I remember clearly from my childhood is what Christians don’t do, and I soon began to wrongly think that the more Godly Christians were the ones who best refrained from sin and the appearance of sin.  I remember growing up asking God to forgive me of my sins every night before I went to bed, because I believed the lie that for me to be right with God all my sin had to be taken care of on a daily basis, and that somehow I was disconnected from God and the Holy Spirit could not indwell me if there was sin in my life.  So I began running on that treadmill.  Sometimes I could stay on the treadmill for days and weeks at a time, but soon it became too exhausting.  By the time I was a senior in high school I really didn’t care anymore because I could not keep up with game I was trying to play.  I never rebelled, but I simply didn’t care anymore, because there was no joy in that kind of life.  I now see it as God’s protective hand over me.

I went off to college, and slowly God introduced this idea of knowing and being known.  My desire and yearning for God slowly began to grow again as I clumsily began to develop a relationship with him, yet at any moment I would be drawn back onto that treadmill of what I now call sin management, because that was what I was familiar with.  My intentions were good, but I failed to understand my identity and how God viewed me.

I continued the cycle of sin management into my mid twenties, and around the age of twenty five I stumbled into this environment of grace.  I did not understand it.  My guard was up.  People were wearing shorts and a t-shirt to church, and for crying out loud, there were women serving communion.  Yet, week in and week out, I would hear this message of grace and identity.  It sounded great. It was almost too good to be true.  I ended up going through a very painful season of life that ended in divorce.  Who was I now?  The good Christian boy, with good Christian parents, and good Christian friends, who was viewed as a good Christian leader at his young age was another statistic of divorce.  Still sitting week in and week out listening to this message of grace I began to check it out more for myself.

I decided to get more involved in this environment of grace, and not until I jumped in did this TrueFaced message begin to really impact my life.  These people were ruggedly real, and I was accepted and they didn’t even know me.  As I engaged the community more, the teaching became more and more alive and real, and it started to become a way of life. I felt safe enough to begin sharing things with people that I would have never dared to anywhere else.

That process began 4 years ago for me, and today I continue to get to be a part of that beautiful mess called an environment of grace where we get to try to live out of who the God declares us to be – the beloved.  I now get to take this message to a local Christian college and try to create an environment of grace with a few others.  The journey is challenging, but the fruit will be worth it, as it is my prayer that college students will encounter grace and take it to the ministries and professions God calls them to.