Day Nine - The Felt Favour of God
My husband and I are in a personally huge season right now as he studies French full time amidst all his leadership responsibilities. We knew it would be a big season and we took a deep breath for it (and have to remember to breath out quite often right now).
Yet somehow in the middle of this we have both been doing so much deep work on our own individual personalities right now with the Enneagram as a self-awareness tool. Do you know much about it? It has literally been transforming our understanding and giving us such grace for one another. Quite literally with this 'AH' revelation, we are turning it into 'AH-HA' moments - which just feels like breathing in and out 'grace and more grace' to one another.
The big moments of laughing and crying for me are coming as I learn more about the way God has designed him by listening to other people LIKE him and recognise - oh he is not the only one like that ...I know him more and understand him more and have grace for him more.
So today I want to show you where the Bible tells us that God knows you by name as well.
A little earlier in Exodus when Moses was first asked to take this same group of people towards the promised land that God had shown him – he was really feeling insecure, unworthy and inadequate to lead these people.
He is in dialogue with the Lord and he says to God:
‘Yet you also said ..I KNOW YOU BY NAME AND YOU HAVE ALSO FOUND FAVOUR IN MY SIGHT’ Exodus 33:12
I love this – Moses is saying ‘YOU SO KNOW ME .. you know everything about me – the good, the bad and the ugly and STILL I HAVE FOUND FAVOUR WITH GOD!’
I responded to this scripture in my journaling one day:
“I love that God knows me by name – who I am, the way I am made up, my gift set, my strengths, my inadequacies, my dreams and desires, my hopes, my failings, my vulnerabilities, my obsessions, my love for His Church, my pastoral strength and weaknesses, my needs and my wants. He knows what my life represents. He knows the really small and seemingly insignificant desires and the values that deeply matter to me”
As we have already learnt with the ‘renaming’ that God does of each of us, this ‘AH’ on the end of the daughters names meant increase, blessing and expansion. It’s the same as the favour that Moses is talking about here in Exodus.
FAVOUR in the Old Testament meant:
Grace
Acceptance
Goodwill
Desire
To bend in kindness to someone inferior
To be shown consideration
In the NT it’s the greek word CHARIS where we get the word grace.
It also means to cherish.
But the ACTIVE VERB OF GRACE – it’s the doing part
FAVOUR
- the act by which grace is expressed
– God WILL do something for them
– God will intervene..
Grace cannot help but manifest in action – and that’s what favor is.
Gods favour is always active – producing and labouring – ‘poured out, extended, gives, bestows, …
To be favoured means to have the signature of Gods favour, honour or cherishing placed upon you so that you can actually tell that He likes you. When He likes you and He expresses His special affection for you there is such an influence that comes upon you that is the Spirit of God Himself upon you, which makes other people like you or co-operate with you.
Some people call it ‘sticky favour’ or embarrassing favour.
I remember being the teachers favourite at school and I only really knew that because of the way she treated me. Her favour had an action, a preference of some kind.
Across this 40 days I want to encourage you to LOOK FOR GOD’S FAVOUR .. look for the ‘AH’ (the Spirit of God) at work. Today as your Bold Step moment why don’t you whisper, or step out knowing that you are God’s favourite!
Love you girls xxx