The Affirmer and The Accuser

Dedicated to my father on this Father's Day 2009.

Disclaimer: If you have any delusions regarding my perfection, read no further... this could shatter that pedestal, otherwise keep reading.

As most people can relate to in their own lives, my past consists of many adventures both good and bad, feats great and small, and tales murky and clear. All these elements add up to one main pursuit in life - my search for identity.

I recall vividly the year when my life assumed purpose in Christ and oddly enough it was well after conversion and many years into adulthood. The initial struggle I fought with narrowed down to this question, "How much of my past must dictate my present identity and overshadow my future?" Obviously one cannot discount the importance of the past in being a schoolteacher to us. After all, the past is the ONLY element of time that carries in it perfect clarity (ie: hindsight is 20/20). And so the purpose of the past must be to teach, so that with the knowledge accumulated from the past we may consummate that knowledge with the wisdom of the present and give birth to understanding in the future.

Taking into account the significance of the past, I was unsure of what to do with the negative elements. Obviously i can learn from them, but must they identify who I am? The answer is, apart from God, yes the past becomes who I am. But a miraculous transformation takes place when one adds God to the equation of life. As the divine nature is born within us and begins to mature and grow in us, God gives to us a most precious gift - His identity and His past. While my physical past continues to teach me, my identity is no longer defined by it but is defined by the Heavenly Father Himself, as He cultivates Christ within me.

And now we enter into the struggle all mankind faces in realizing identity - the age old battle between the Affirmer and the Accuser. This battle recently played itself out in a very real way for me, much to both my joy and dismay.

During a recent trip to visit my family, my father assumed a blessed and divine role bestowed on all fathers - the affirmer. When this role is exercised in the image of God it affirms those around it. Apart from the image of God it takes on a corrupt nature and turns into the role of the accuser - both roles struggle to identify us.

My father offered me words of affirmation; words that praised my role as a wife and how he had seen me change into a woman who honors and respects her husband even in difficult times and circumstances. He praised my role as a mother and my diligence in simultaneously caring for my children and my own health. He praised my maturity as a daughter of God and exhorted me in continuing to offer to others out of that growth. As he spoke these words I heard the words of the Heavenly Father echoing out of them, "This is my daughter, whom I love. In her I am well pleased." (Matt 3:17). At the time, an element of that relationship escaped me. I forgot the nature of the accuser and his habitual appearance following moments of affirmation, to attempt to incapacitate us through whatever means he can grasp onto to attack our divine identity. (Matt 4:1-11).

But come, he did. The accuser (not my father just for clarification) appeared and began his assault in every aspect recently affirmed. He attacked my role as wife, wielding my past at me, pummeling me again and again with it. He attacked my role as a mother and in the final blows attempted to strip even my identity in Christ from me. And then he was gone. As I lay broken, striped, and ashamed on the proverbial floor, I cried out to God, not understanding what I was to do in light of this clear assault on every fiber of my being. Did the accuser have the right to hurl my past at me in an attempt to undo what good work God was doing in me?

A most miraculous encounter ensued at this point. The Ancient of Days reached down through the ages, weaving His way through my past and came to stand over me. His voice echoed from His Word unfolding an all too familiar conversation to me.

"Daughter, where are your accusers?"

I know this conversation...

"They have gone."

"Then neither do I condemn you."

He called me daughter... relief washed over me as I realized my identity in Him was still intact; that the Great Affirmer's words continued to define who I was. My own father's words again rang clearly in my ears, "You are a good wife, a good mother, and a good daughter." The words of the accuser fell dead to the ground, impotent and puny next to the Giver of all that is good.

I do not resent or hate the vessel of the accuser's choosing. My heart feels compassion and sorrow for the hatred harbored that allows the accuser to manipulate him to his purposes. But discernment allows me to separate the two - to hate the accuser but to love the man. If I cannot forgive the man, then do I not perpetuate a cycle of hatred and sin? And so I forgive.

My words are formed to speak to fathers during this week that commemorates the magnificence of fatherhood; to bring awareness to the divine nature within you that reflects the image of God - the role you carry as fathers to offer identity and affirmation. But my words also carry warning to those who would corrupt this precious gift of God in an attempt to identify through accusation. Choose wisely. Whose nature will you reflect? The Affirmer or the Accuser?