When God's Grace Goes to Places that are Off Limits

When Grace Goes to Places that are “Off Limits”

by Aaron Schulman

Little Grace, being 2 and a half years old, is always getting into “trouble”.   She climbs to the back of the couch and dives onto the soft seated areas, giggling wildly.  She flips the cushions away from the back, tearing the living room up to pretend she is swimming, just like the penguins she saw in an animated movie we enjoy.  Other times, she will leave the room and for a minute will go out of our “sonar” range:  we are unable to hear Grace because she is being so very quiet.  “I wonder what she is not supposed to be doing now”, is a very popular and repeated phrase in our house these days.  And yes, every time we seek her out in these times when Grace goes into “top secret stealth mode”, she is up to something that even as a toddler, she knows are “off limits”.  

While writing another reflection on Grace, I was subtly reminded that Grace is always going to places that are “off limits”, yet never truly doing any harm.  In fact, thankfully, God’s Grace often goes to places in our lives that we have masked off, sealed shut, suppressed and locked away in the deep dark depths of our hearts and have tagged as “off limits” to God and to everyone else, even ourselves. And yet, while we do all we can to forget and move on, they remain a target for God’s Grace, deep places to travel that are apparently “off limits”.

Sometimes we have experienced such tremendous pain through lost and deferred hope, a bad situation that became far worse than anything we could have ever imagined, or a relationship that has left us so deeply damaged and wounded that we vow to keep that part of our heart “off limits”, hoping to forever conceal and hide the pain like a traitorous prisoner in the musty depths of the deepest dungeon.  Ultimately, left to mold and rot in those depths of our heart, soul and mind, these unresolved wounds ferment and bubble up in irrational ways, defensiveness, desire for illusory control, the way we irrationally respond to conflict, and many other sideways triggers and behaviors that leave us “un-free”.  If only we could free these prisoners and allow the deep cleansing of the Lord to go where no one else can tread. . . and yet, as painful as it is, sometimes more painful to revisit than the initial pain of their infliction, these wounds are not forgotten by the Grace of God, though we go through such great measure to protect them and mark them as “off-limits” to all, even our own remembrance.  

It is at this point, that there are at least two sides of God’s Grace working together, and probably more, but this is all my small mind can conceive presently (His non-invasive gentle and inviting approach as He stands at the door and knocks -Rev 3:20- and His desire to continually pursue and reclaim our freedom by breaking down gates of bronze and cutting through bars of iron -Isaiah 45:2).  He desires more than anything, our freedom and our life to be restored and glorifying Him, and often He will forge circumstances to cause us to go with His Grace to those places so deeply treasured and idolized as “off-limits”.  Even more so, His first desire is for us to thoroughly enjoy an eternal relationship with Him, and to for us to invite Him in to every part of our lives, even the dungeons of suppressed and repressed wounds, so that He may know us more than a husband can know his wife.  It seems that we place a lot of emphasis on knowing God, and doing the right things, when in Matthew 7:23, He places the emphasis on knowing us!  Even when it requires going to the depths of the most painful and rotten places.

Though unearthing these buried, rotten treasures have been perhaps the most painful processes in my life, and the life of my wife, it is God’s Grace ever leading us back to those places that we vehemently defend as “off-limits”.  In fact, if it weren’t for God continually calling me to places I have locked away in my own spirit and heart “dungeons”, I would continually spiral into more and more chains, remain a prisoner, striving in despair or responding to people from the mixed desires of poison fermenting in those dark places, and my desire to do good and respond in submission to the Holy Spirit, allowing the fruit of the Spirit to have its way.

Proverbs 4:23 (NIV) says, “  Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.  When God told us to guard our hearts, He never intended for us to guard our hearts from Him.  Ask Him to help you “un-guard” your heart from Him, as difficult and scary as it may be.

Prayer:  God, thank you for wanting to go to those places that are “off-limits”.  Please know me in this way, and help me to invite you into those places so that I can become whole and free.

• What is the place or places where God is perhaps wanting to take you that you have staked as “off-limits”?

• Who can you trust to pray with you through these difficult places?

• Are you willing to at least ask God to help you have the courage to even ask Him for help?