Hacked!

Details

Published on Wednesday, September 2, 2015

By Rev. Glenna Beauchamp

Rivers and Oak River United Churches

“How would you feel if you picked up a newspaper tomorrow and there, on the front page, were your deepest, darkest secrets?” This used to be a theoretical question. Not anymore! Social media has made privacy a thing of the past. The thought of our credit card and banking information showing up on a website is scary enough, but even worse, is the kind of exposure people experience when a site like Ashley Madison is hacked.

The thought of thousands of people, most of them strangers who never met you, reading this kind of data about you is chilling. There is One who has always known everything on our minds and in our hearts. How do we feel about God knowing every detail about us?

Depends, doesn’t it?

It depends on what we believe God is like. If God is only a distant, unfeeling, stern judge ready to pounce on us when we fail to live up to His stringent standards, that is also a chilling thought. If God is a compassionate father who pours out abundant grace and loves us with a love that will never let go, then we welcome God’s scrutiny of our lives. Because such a God, the God revealed to us in the life of Jesus, can do something about those things in our lives that burden us with guilt and shame. This God wants to forgive us, cleanse us, heal us and transform us into new creations. God is our judge and does insist we obey His law, but God is also our father who keeps reaching out to us, inviting us into a relationship grounded in His covenant love.