Tag Archive for: Rejoice

Hiding Your Story Is Holding You Back

 

I used to believe that strength meant silence. Not because I thought I had it all together—but because I didn’t.

Maybe you’ve felt that too. Maybe you’ve felt like your sin—especially sexual sin—is what disqualifies you from talking, from leading, from being whole. But hiding your story doesn’t heal your shame. It preserves it. And it wasn’t until I started to tell the truth that I saw what God had been doing in it all along.

The Power of Being Seen—and Still Loved

I’ve talked to enough people to know this is more common than we let on. Some of you reading this are locked in a daily fight against pornography, sexual addiction, or a secret habit you swore you’d quit. Others of you carry wounds from someone else’s sin—betrayal, abuse, manipulation, or neglect. Some of you are exhausted because someone you love keeps running back into the same darkness, and you’re left holding the pieces. And there’s one lie Satan keeps selling to all of us: “You can’t tell anyone.”

But there is something terrifying and healing about being fully known. I’ll never forget the first time I told a friend that I was struggling with temptation and felt ashamed about things from my past. I expected pity or disappointment. Instead, I got a hug and a quiet word: “Me too.”

There’s a moment in John 4 where Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well. She’s had five husbands and is living with a sixth man. She’s coming to the well alone, in the heat of the day, because shame isolates. But Jesus meets her there. He speaks. He listens. He names her pain. And she runs back to town shouting, “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did!”

Not, “Come see a man who ignored my sin.” Not, “Come see a man who made me feel good.”  But: He saw me. And he didn’t run.

That’s the power of vulnerability.

It breaks the silence. It breathes. It invites others to look past the highlight reel and say, “Me too.” Her story echoes the apostle John, “Perfect LOVE is what drives out fear.” (1 John 4:18)

Why Your Story Isn’t Over—It’s Just Being Rewritten

Darkness will try to creep in when you tell your story. You may remember every reason why you stayed quiet: The moments you wish you could erase. The tears. The regret. The humiliation. But when God rewrites your story, he doesn’t delete the broken chapters. He redeems them.

I used to think I’d never be free from the shame I felt. Not just about things I did—but things I allowed. Things I failed to stop. Things that hurt others. I wondered if I could really be used by God. But over time, through confession, prayer, and people who refused to give up on me, I started to see something new: The cross of Christ doesn’t just forgive our sin. It reframes our entire story.

The Bible is filled with broken people whose stories don’t get erased—they get used.

We are not the sum of our worst moments. We are the sum of Christ’s righteousness, credited to us by grace. So if your story feels messy, welcome to the Bible. And welcome to the beautiful mystery of grace.

Why Telling Your Story Heals You (and Others Too)

There’s something deeply healing that happens when you go first. I’ve seen it again and again in my ministry. Someone stands up and tells the truth.

“I was addicted to porn.”

“I was unfaithful to my spouse.”

“I was molested.”

“I thought my worth was tied to my body.”

“I didn’t know how to say no.”

And suddenly, other people—who’ve been sitting in silence for years—start to breathe again. You see it in their eyes. Someone else said what they couldn’t. And now, maybe they can. Telling your story isn’t just therapy. It’s witness. It’s worship.

Revelation 12:11 says, “They triumphed over [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.” Not just by Jesus’ blood—but by the stories of people whose lives were changed because of that blood. Your story won’t save anyone. But it might lead them to the One who can.

Why Churches Must Be Safe Enough for Real Stories

Some of you aren’t hiding your story because you’re afraid of God. You’re hiding because of how Christians treated you. Maybe someone shamed you. Gossiped about you. Treated you like you were less than. Maybe a church leader failed to walk with you. Maybe you confessed, and instead of being led to grace, you were sent away.

I’m so sorry if that’s you. But that’s not Jesus. And it doesn’t have to be your future. Church should be the safest place in the world to tell the worst thing you’ve done. Not because sin is small—but because grace is bigger. I’m convinced we need more ministries, more small groups, more leaders, and more ordinary Christians who know how to listen with compassion and point people to the cross without flinching. We need churches that ask better questions, create real accountability, and walk patiently with sinners. Not every story needs to be told on stage. But every person should be able to say, “I’m not okay,” and know that they won’t be abandoned.

So… What’s Your Story?

You don’t have to start with a microphone. You don’t have to post it on the internet. But what if this month, you told one person the truth? What if you sat down with someone safe and said, “Can I tell you what I’ve been through?” Or, “Can I finally say out loud what I’ve been carrying?”

Or maybe, “Can I tell you what Jesus has done in my life—because it’s not just about me anymore.”

You never know who needs to hear that. I’ve had people come up after a sermon and say, “I thought I was the only one.” I’ve had family members thank me for saying what they couldn’t. I’ve had strangers open up because vulnerability breaks barriers. You don’t have to have a neat ending. You don’t have to pretend your healing is complete. You just need to be honest about who your Healer is.

Final Words: What You’ve Been Through Isn’t the End

What you’ve done—or what’s been done to you—doesn’t get the last word. Jesus does. If you’re battling sin right now, there is mercy.  If you’ve been betrayed, there is comfort. If your past still haunts you, there is healing. And if you’re afraid to tell your story, there is power waiting on the other side of your “yes.” I’m not perfect. But I’m not hiding. And maybe today is the day you stop hiding too. How? Because Jesus has you wrapped in his arms, and he won’t let you go. 

 

Jonny Lehmann is the lead pastor and instructor at Divine Savior Church in West Palm Beach, FL. 

 

Embrace the power of honesty, prioritize gospel responses, and create Christian environments filled with grace and truth.

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Searching for Love — The One Relationship That Defines Your Life

 

This article continues from part one, The Unwanted Wife — And Why Her Story Might Be Yours. Read part one  → 

We can’t know for sure because Scripture does not say, but one could wonder if Jacob also struggled to know who he was

While seven years of service for the chance to marry Rachel might initially sound romantic, we can’t help but wonder if it wasn’t more about Jacob than Rachel. Was he willing to work those long years to love Rachel…or simply to get someone who made him feel better about himself?

The Bible tells us that the years flew by, but he never stopped watching the clock. At the end, he told Laban, “Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to make love to her.”

But on the wedding night, in the secrecy of a dark tent, Rachel was replaced with Leah. Jacob didn’t realize it until morning. How? Could it be that he wasn’t in love with Rachel—he was in love with the *idea* of Rachel? 

Though we can’t know exactly what was in Jacob’s heart, we know that false gods work like that. You think they’ll fulfill your deepest hopes, but they always disappoint. Perhaps you could think of it like going to bed with Rachel, but you wake up with Leah—unfulfilled, and unhappy.

Leah, too, was searching for love.

We’re told: “Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful.” This isn’t about vision—it’s about appearance. Leah wasn’t pretty. She may have been cross-eyed, or simply unattractive. She wasn’t loved by her father. She wasn’t loved by her husband. She wasn’t enough.

And she knew it. We can feel her pain through the names she gives her sons. Her first son, Reuben, means “See, a son”—because God had seen her. But would Jacob? Her second, Simeon, reflects that God had heard her—but her husband still didn’t. Her third, Levi, was born in hope: “Now maybe my husband will become attached to me.” And still, she was unloved.

She tried to earn Jacob’s love through her children, even though she already had the love of God. She used her kids to medicate the pain of rejection. But then—something changed. With her fourth son, Judah, she says, “This time, I will praise the Lord.” Not: “Maybe now he’ll love me.”

Just: praise.

 

Leah finally got it.

She didn’t need a man to give her what only God could. That lesson—hard-won and heartbreaking—is one I wish every young woman today could learn.

Men often chase beauty, hoping sex will make them feel loved. Women often chase commitment, willing to settle for less in exchange for intimacy. Both end up making fools of themselves, trying to get from each other what only God can give.

But how do you break free from romantic lovesickness? You have to see the beauty of Jesus.

Leah—the weak, the rejected—was chosen to bring forth Judah, and through him, the Savior. God had mercy on her. And God chooses not the strong, intelligent, or beautiful, but the ones who know they are weak and ugly and in need of grace.

God took Jacob, the unwanted son, and Leah, the unwanted wife, and through them brought forth Judah.

From Judah came Jesus who gave up divine beauty and glory to become so disfigured and rejected that people couldn’t stand to look at him, who was more beautiful than Rachel, chose to become weaker than Leah—so that we, in all our spiritual ugliness, could become radiant in God’s sight.

It doesn’t matter how you see yourself. It doesn’t matter how others see you. Because of the ugliness of the cross, you are beautiful to God.

May that be the one love—the one relationship—that defines your life.

 

Brad Snyder is a pastor and instructor at St. Croix Lutheran Academy in West St. Paul, MN and serves as the chairman for Conquerors through Christ. 

 

See your true worth through God’s Eyes (Book Recommendation)

Conqueror’s through Christ reviewed the book The Search for Significance by Robert S. McGee and considers it a useful guide for those caught in the destructive cycle of self-condemnation or worldly success. “…the point is clear that Christ is the source of our security; Christ is the basis of our worth; Christ is the only one who promises and never fails.” (p. 24) Read our full review of The Search for Significance → 

The Unwanted Wife – And Why Her Story Might Be Yours

Have you ever chased love that left you feeling used, unseen, or simply not enough?

Leah did too—and yet, God chose her to help bring Jesus into the world.

You might be living for romance, sex, or someone else’s approval—just like Jacob. You might be giving yourself away just to feel seen—just like Leah. But none of that will heal the ache in your heart. Only one love can.

Jacob worked seven years for Laban to marry his daughter Rachel. He had fallen deeply in love with her—so much so that those seven years felt like just a few days. When the time was up, Jacob went to claim his bride. Laban threw a feast, there was celebration, and Jacob spent the evening with his new wife. But when he awoke the next morning, it wasn’t Rachel by his side. “There was Leah”—Rachel’s older sister.

Why Leah?

Laban explained that it was their custom to marry off the older daughter before the younger—something that, you’d think, could have been mentioned sometime in the past seven years. Rachel stayed silent, waited out Leah’s wedding week, and then married Jacob too, in exchange for another seven years of labor.

And so Leah found herself in the middle of it all—consummating a marriage with a man who didn’t love her, who didn’t even realize it was her. And she stayed, not just for the week, but for life. She gave Jacob six sons, a daughter, and even her maidservant so that he could have more children she claimed as her own. She competed with Rachel to bear children for the man who loved Rachel more. She bought and sold the right to sleep with her husband. She was neither the deceiver nor the deceived—neither the lover nor the beloved. She had no identity of her own: daughter of a swindler, older sister to the beauty, first wife of a man who loved someone else. She was the mother of his children, but who was she, really? She was “Leah,” but what did that mean? “There was Leah” …but who was she?

Who are you? What’s your identity?

When someone says, “There you are,” who are they talking to? Are you defined by who you sleep with? By who you love? Or by who loves you? Are you defined by what you do? By what others do because of you? Are you the daughter, son, sibling, beauty, victim, or object of someone else’s affection or use? Who are you, really? And how can you know?

“There was Leah.” Why?

One reason is clear: Jesus.

Leah, the first and less-loved wife of Jacob, became the mother of Judah. And in both Matthew 1 and Luke 3, between Jacob and Judah, we find Leah—not named, but there. You and I know her name because of Jesus.

So—who are you?

I don’t know, and honestly, I don’t care who you’ve slept with or why. I don’t know what kind of person you are or what motivates you. I might not even know your name. But still—there you are.

Why? Because of Jesus.

For Jesus. In Jesus. Through Jesus. No matter what else you are, you are his. Bought with his blood—the blood that came from Leah’s line.

Many of us deeply crave the approval of others—even complete strangers. And the closer a relationship becomes, the more powerful and even idolatrous that approval can be. We care what peers think. We care even more what friends, family, and romantic partners think. These are good relationships, but they become dangerous when they become ultimate—when they compete with the love and affection that belong to God alone.

In a culture that downplays commitment and redefines marriage, Christians can react by swinging too far in the other direction, idolizing marriage as the pinnacle of life: love, family, kids, the white picket fence.

But Jesus never says that marriage will heal you. He never claims that romantic love will save you. He points to himself. Not the one who promises to spend their life with you, but the one who gave his life for you.

That is the relationship that defines your life—now and forever.

Jesus is the one who heals. He is the one who saves.

 

Brad Snyder is a pastor and instructor at St. Croix Lutheran Academy in West St. Paul, MN and serves as the chairman for Conquerors through Christ. 

 

See your true worth through God’s Eyes (Book Recommendation)

Conqueror’s through Christ reviewed the book The Search for Significance by Robert S. McGee and considers it a useful guide for those caught in the destructive cycle of self-condemnation or worldly success. “…the point is clear that Christ is the source of our security; Christ is the basis of our worth; Christ is the only one who promises and never fails.” (p. 24) Read our full review of The Search for Significance → 

God Told Him to Marry a Prostitute…What?!

“When the LORD began to speak through Hosea, the LORD said to him, ‘Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the LORD.’ So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim…” (Hosea 1:2-3)

Hosea was God’s man.

God’s prophet. Set aside to do God’s work. And one of the things God had for Hosea to do was to marry Gomer.

God told Hosea to marry Gomer.

The thing is, Gomer was a prostitute. God had commanded Hosea to marry someone who had not been, and in all likelihood would never be, faithful.

Hosea was God’s object lesson.

Israel had rejected God and turned to idols the way Gomer rejected Hosea and turned to other men.

The result of the idolatry for the relationship between God and Israel was illustrated by the names of Gomer’s children:

  1. no faithfulness
  2. no love
  3. no relationship

With the object lesson of Hosea’s marriage, God said to Israel: “You want to know what your idolatry means? You want to know what it’s like? Idolatry is adultery. They’re the same. Your idolatry takes what’s mine and gives it away. You belonged to me. I married you. And you ran off with other gods. You threw away the relationship with me that I gave you. Israel, you have been unfaithful.”

And what did Israel deserve for their idolatry? What did Gomer deserve for her adultery?

By law, Hosea had the right to a quick divorce.

In today’s terms, he’d get the house, the car, and the kids. But Hosea had the right to more than that. He could have Gomer killed. Stoned to death. Brutally executed.

And God had similar rights over Israel.

God would have been totally justified in a quick divorce. A complete separation.

God could leave them to their gods of wood and stone and see how long they lasted. But more than that. God had the right to punish.

Idolatry is sin.

Sin deserves death.

Physical death, yes, but more than just that. Eternal death. Death in hell.

Instead, God tells Hosea to take back his adulterous wife.

Why? Why doesn’t God allow Hosea to treat Gomer the way she deserves?

Because God does not allow himself to treat Israel the way they deserve. No divorce. No execution. No separation. No eternal punishment.

The consequences of Israel’s sins were coming, but God was never going to abandon them. He would still remain faithful. He would still love. He would still call them his own. Despite what they deserved.

Is that not the perfect picture of mercy?

How did Hosea feel about being God’s picture?

Hosea was God’s man.

God’s prophet. Set aside to do God’s work. To marry Gomer and be betrayed and feel with his human heart something like what God feels about his people and about all people.

 

How did Hosea feel about being put through that?

How do you feel about it?

You are God’s person. Not a prophet, but you are set aside from the world by faith in Jesus to do God’s work. And every time you take a look at life through the eyes of faith you are putting yourself in a position to feel with your human heart something like what God feels.

The pain of knowing how people are separated from him by sin. The longing for all people to turn back to him. And the love that sent his Son to win them back. Faith forces you to see things the way God sees them. And it isn’t always pleasant. It is often heartbreaking.

Hosea was God’s man.

God’s prophet. Set aside to do God’s work. And to write it down.

Hosea ends his book with this very personal thought:

“Who is wise? Let them realize these things. Who is discerning? Let them understand. The ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them but the rebellious stumble in them.” (Hosea 14:9)

Hosea knew that God is right. And he felt it.

By faith, he saw things from God’s perspective. Saw how right God is to detest what sin does to people. How right God is to treat us infinitely better than we deserve. And Hosea got to be right, the way God is, in his own treatment of Gomer. And I doubt that felt good. But it must have felt right.

 

But he didn’t need to, right?

I know God told him to and that’s why Hosea married Gomer, and then Gomer’s unfaithfulness to Hosea could be the object lesson for Israel’s unfaithfulness to the Lord. But Hosea didn’t need to marry Gomer to make that point. That point is made nearly everywhere else in the Old Testament.

Idolatry equals adultery.

By the time we get to Hosea, God has already said idolatry equals adultery several times. And for none of those other times did God require his prophet to marry an adulteress and suffer all the suffering that comes with being married to an unfaithful partner.

And Gomer didn’t have to suffer through the public shame of being an adulteress. A shame that has been public for thousands of years now. It didn’t have to be. It all seems so unnecessary. I’m sure it would have seemed especially unnecessary to Gomer.

I’m not going to pretend to know anything about the decisions that go into pursuing a life of prostitution. I doubt Gomer was happy about her profession. It seems safe to assume that she got the job out of necessity. Her career was about survival, not about professional growth. 

That being said, she was surviving. There was enough shame in it that Gomer was probably left alone for the most part. And she was probably rather desensitized to all of it.

You’d have to be, wouldn’t you? You couldn’t possibly hold onto a very high opinion of God’s gifts of sex and marriage, could you? Not while getting paid for it. 

So, what would Gomer have thought of God’s command to Hosea that he find a “promiscuous woman” to marry as an object lesson for the entire nation? Did she laugh jadedly at the idea of a prostitute marrying a prophet? Did she bristle at the idea of making her shame so public or was she desensitized to that, too? Was she open with Hosea about the fact that she had no intention of remaining faithful to him after their wedding? Was the whole thing a joke to her? Was any of it really necessary?

But she went along with it, and God was able to make his point in a striking way. And Hosea’s book of God’s words is in the Bible for us to read and learn from.

Because she did, and he did and she was… Because God made his point about idolatry and adultery for them and for us and for everyone in the whole world… Because Hosea married Gomer, Gomer was loved.

Not in a Hollywood, romantic, “Pretty Woman” kind of way. We don’t know that Hosea and Gomer ever “fell in love.” We know for a fact that Hosea was commanded to love Gomer. In spite of who she was. But still, she was loved. Not for money. But for God. To show God’s love. 

But still, she was loved. Not for money. But for God. To show God’s love.

 

Was it necessary? Was that the only way for God to show his love to his people? By commanding Hosea to love Gomer? I mean, God did it that way so we can assume it was necessary. And how else was Gomer ever going to be loved? How else was she ever going to understand how much God loved her, unless by seeing Hosea love her? And forgive her. Without any reason to other than that God told him to.

Because that’s how God loves. Hosea is an example to us of how God sees our sin. It’s prostitution. It’s adultery. It’s shameful and hurtful and so offensive that it’s nauseating. And still, Gomer is an example to us and to herself of how God still loves us. And that’s why our sin offends him. Because he loves us. And so he loves us far more than we deserve and entirely in spite of who we are. He loves us so much that, jaded and desensitized as we may be, he finds a way to get the message of his love through to us. Usually, through the people whom he has put in our lives to be little examples of his love. 

Was it necessary? I don’t know about you, but object lessons always seem pretty superfluous. Except when I consider that every human life is an object lesson to every other. That’s the beauty of how God made us. As social creatures, we learn best when we learn from each other.

And what do we learn when we consider to what lengths God went to show us his love in the lives of all the people he mentions in his book?

What do we learn from Gomer?

We learn the most important, most striking, most necessary lesson of them all.

We learn of God’s grace.

We learn of Jesus.

 

Brad Snyder is a pastor and instructor at St. Croix Lutheran Academy in West St. Paul, MN and serves as the chairman for Conquerors through Christ. 

 

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