Gentle and Lowly, Chapter 15 - “His ‘Natural’ Work and His ‘Strange’ Work”

This reflection is by Visio Dei member Brianna Boes.

As a parent, I often speak to my children about consequences. If they don’t do their homework or study, they won’t get good grades, which has the potential to limit their options down the line. If they lie to me, they lose my trust which takes time to restore and is a worse consequence than whatever might happen if they tell the truth. After all, how can I help them face the ramifications of their sin or lack of wisdom if they lie to me about it?

 When Scripture speaks of God as our Father, I understand him in a different way than I did before I became a mother. We parents—as image-bearers—mimic that parental side of our Lord, even though we pale in comparison due to our many flaws. The commonalities, of course, only go so far. Whereas God is perfect, I am not. Whereas he holds all things in his hands, I do not. He balances the scales of justice on a worldwide, history-sweeping scale. God is sovereign and wise. He has made it so that we feel pain when we get burned, fall down, or otherwise hurt ourselves so that we avoid serious self-harm. He has given human beings a need to see justice done (however imperfectly we do that) so that we make laws and do not live in chaos. He does not shield our temporal lives from the consequences of our sin so that we might seek Him and find eternal life without pain and suffering.

Dane Ortland acknowledges divine affliction in chapter 15 of Gentle and Lowly while pointing to God’s heart which is pained by the consequences he allows and is overjoyed by the opportunity to show mercy. This is where parenthood has given me fresh understanding. Should one of my children find themselves suffering, I, too, suffer greatly. There is this deep and abiding ache at the center of my chest, a sorrow that twists my insides and stays with me until their pain is finished. I feel that way no matter if their situation is due to their mistake or someone else’s. And yet, there is this knowing in the midst of it: if they don’t learn and grow from this, when something worse happens, they might break. There are even times when I could ease their suffering by removing a consequence, or there are times I could simply choose to stay silent and leave them ignorant of their wrongdoing. (Sometimes, the lecture is the consequence, along with an admonishment to repent and sin no more.) But easing their suffering could be effectively trading their pain now for a deeper pain later. Or, doing so could actively hinder their growth into functioning adults. And so, I allow the consequence—or sometimes afflict it upon them—out of love, no matter the pain it might cause the both of us.

 I imagine God the Father acting in that same capacity, except in a perfect way and with higher, eternal stakes for his children. I also imagine the grief that accompanies his righteous justice toward sin to be deeper and fuller than anything I’ve ever experienced or ever could.

Thankfully, as we are reminded in this chapter, God is both just and good. He is “on the edge of his seat eager” to bless his children (140-141). He refuses to give up on us, and his “compassion grows warm and tender” (141, Hos. 11:8). There is never a time when we must bear the weight of consequences alone. There is never a time when forgiveness is denied a repentant heart. There is never a time when comfort cannot be found in our Heavenly Father. Considering all of this, I can’t help but repeat: God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.