What don’t you like about yourself? Even after going to Confession, do you still sometimes feel ashamed of your sins? And is this making you wonder if Father God is keeping you in misery because you don’t deserve better treatment?
Father God is full of compassion for you. Compassion is not something that we have to wait for. Compassion is not something we need to be good enough for. Jesus gave us a parable that describes what the Father’s compassion looks like. The story of the Prodigal Son (Lk. 15:11-32) illustrates that compassion fills the Father’s heart even while we are still far off track in the Christian life.
So he got up and went back to his father. While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him. (Lk. 15:20 NAB)
The parable of the Prodigal Son assures us that the Father cherishes us no matter what we’ve done. He waits, full of fatherly yearning, for us to turn away from our sins and turn toward Him. That’s all we need to do; just turn around. And the moment we do that, He runs to us! He wastes no time but immediately embraces us, welcomes us, and kisses us with His superabundant love.
The prodigal son had not yet asked his dad for forgiveness when he felt forgiveness wrap around him like a warm blanket. His confession came afterward. This is how the Father treats us. When we sin, He waits for our repentance with eager anticipation. He feels the pain of our absence. His fatherly heart yearns for the moment when we’ll realize that we’re better off with Him than in the pigsty of our sins.
Why does He treat us this way when He knows we will so easily fall back into sin? He sees our future. And yet He does not hold our future sins against us. He embraces us in the here and now. That’s compassion!
This is what it means to be an adopted child of God through the Sacrament of Baptism. When the Father looks at us who are His adopted sons and daughters, He doesn’t focus on what we’ve done wrong. While we are still in the state of sin, His focus is on the horizon line while He awaits our turnaround. He focuses on the steps we make in the right direction. He is driven by compassion to run and meet us, wherever we are, and to embrace us in a divine welcome-back hug that braces us up in our weaknesses.
Because of this, we can stop feeling ashamed of ourselves. We can give God’s compassion to ourselves. At the same time that we’re feeling convicted to repent, rather than beat ourselves up over what we did wrong (which is Satan the Accuser attacking us), the Father wants us to be compassionate to ourselves just like He’s being compassionate. This does not mean that we make excuses for our sins. No, it means that, just like Father God is focused on our turn-around and celebrates our repentance, so should we. Instead of unceasingly wallowing in regret, we can learn from our mistakes, and we can grow stronger in our commitment to live as the saints that God gifted us to be when we were baptized.
When my imagination illustrates the story of the Prodigal Son, I see the son limping toward home. He’s walked a long distance on an empty stomach. He’s weak and barely able to trudge through the last few miles of the journey home. His father runs to him and cries tears of joy and relief while hugging his son. Then he provides his own strength to support his son for the rest of the way.
Abba-Father is bracing you up, too, in your weaknesses—even before you conquer that persistent sin that makes you feel so unworthy. In His tremendous compassion He is giving you powerful support.
Such compassion is unimaginable for those of us who were abused or neglected or rejected by parents. And even in homes where the parents were full of compassion, to the child, discipline felt more like animosity than compassion. A good parent gives children a welcome-back hug after they’ve learned their lesson or showed a desire to improve. But if we grew up in a home where we did not feel our parents’ compassion during punishments, we’re probably projecting their character flaw onto God’s Fatherhood.
Therefore, when our prayers go unanswered or we suffer a problem that makes life difficult, we automatically assume that God is lacking compassion. Maybe we think we’re being punished.
It’s true that God disciplines us, but this always comes from a heart that yearns for us to become our best selves, which is also our happiest selves. The Father’s heart breaks when we sin. He knows that sin is destroying us in ways we cannot yet see. And He longs for us to spend eternity at Home with Him. He is all-goodness, and so He has to chastise us.
He does not chastise us by refusing to answer our prayers. That would require Him to stop being good, which is impossible. The word “chastise” comes from the Latin word castigare, which means “to set or keep right” or “to make pure.” The chastisements of Father God are designed to get our attention and make us turn to the Son who took our sins and nailed them to His Cross. By the blood He shed for us on Good Friday, we are purified from every sin that we genuinely want to overcome.
The word “compassion” means “to suffer with.” The Latin word com means “with, together.” The Latin root of “passion” is pati, which means “to suffer.” Therefore, it’s good to realize that in every chastisement, the Father suffers with us.
He is not the parent who sends an erring child to the corner; He takes us to the corner and sits with us there. He is not the parent who teaches a lesson by making the child suffer; He is the Father who takes us to the Son who chose to suffer for us.
When we accept this tremendous act of love, Jesus and the Father give us the Holy Spirit who teaches us lessons in a most victorious way. Thus, all things—including our sins—are made to work together for our good because our Father delights in turning something evil into something holy.
We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (Rom. 8:28)
Image from Wikimedia Commons
