The Shining Face of God
for those dealing with shame and discouragement
Guest Post by Dr. Robert Hunter
This article is adapted from my forthcoming book, “Putting a New Face on God: How You See God Shapes Your Life,” published by SacraSage Press.
A life-giving message amid such hard times in the Church of the Nazarene might be refreshing. In recent months, I have pondered the “shining face” reference found in the book of Numbers called the Aaronic blessing. It is a proclamation aimed at declaring something about God that will impact people’s lives. Here it is: “The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:
“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace” -Numbers 6: 22-26
Moses delivered this message from the Lord to Aaron and his sons as a priestly blessing, and these words have echoed throughout Jewish history until today. Appreciating the English equivalent of Hebrew words translated bless, keep, shine, gracious, and peace is somewhat hard for modern people. Be assured, in their original context, they carried a lot of weight. The real beauty is seen in what these words reveal about God’s character. In Hebrew culture, a face represents the totality of a person’s being. Imagine God’s shining face looking upon you with favor. All that God is in glory, splendor, and wonder noticing a person like you. What an incredible thought!
God’s shining face is a message that needs urgent hearing. The erosion of the Christian Church has significantly disrupted the faith of many devoted believers. The very organism charged with the task of delivering the message of good news has stumbled. Older generations of Christians are faltering, and younger generations are abandoning the faith altogether. What’s happened? A comprehensive answer to that question goes way beyond the scope of this article, but there is one issue I would like to address. The dark and scary images the Christian church has traditionally used to portray God have backfired. Instead of a God too beautiful and compelling to resist, we have settled for bloody images of a Christ who bore punishment on a cross to appease God. Striking Jesus down in cold blood to satisfy God’s wrath is that message. Images of a stern, angry, and unpredictable God have a chilling effect on our spirituality, emptying our churches and gutting our souls. Thankfully, a new version of God is being born, even as I write. A God whose face shines so bright the dark images of judgment and wrath readily dissolve. My book is an attempt to renew our vision of God.
I would like to share some thoughts about God’s shining face helping us deal with the problem of human shame and discouragement. In all its various forms, shame is that awful feeling of inadequacy, humiliation, and embarrassment. Some experts define shame as a psychological and spiritual response to the absence of love because shame reinforces the idea that something is inherently wrong with me that makes me unlovable. Shame sufferers often feel they have nowhere to turn, and there is a scarcity of resources available to find relief. Not everyone can be treated by a professional. The magnitude of people's suffering demands a spiritual solution that exceeds the limitations of modern therapy. I believe a new version of God can effectively treat shame. The next time you feel awful about yourself and loathe your identity as a human, look in the direction of God’s shining face and find people who can support you in fixing your eyes on a version of God that heals from shame’s deepest wounds.
It is my heartfelt belief God’s shining face cancels human shame. Let me explain how. When we look upon the face of mercy and embrace a God of love, a framework for dealing with shame is firmly set. Too often, the framework we adopt to address human shame does not hold up, and sufferers circle the wagons, running from treatment to treatment, therapist to therapist, relationship to relationship, and church to church in search of something to adequately address how they feel about themselves. A framework of healing built on a foundation of love flowing from a God whose good nature is the very source of life makes shame recovery possible. Don’t we all want to see God’s shining face as we deal with shame’s dehumanizing effect on our souls? I can’t think of anything more meaningful.
There’s another level of application worth mentioning. The deep wounds of shame come from various sources, including the institutions and organizations we belong to. Shaming an individual or a group of individuals can be very painful, whether it be a church institution, a corporate organization, or a family system. The wounds run deep because identities and livelihoods are attached to those relationships. Institutions don’t express empathy well, and in order to survive, they will cannibalize their own with shaming tactics. This is not a good feeling, and it leads to self-devaluation, which can take years to overcome. Have you ever been fired? Denied a promotion? Pushed out of a church? Or experienced outright rejection from a peer group? We all have. Institutions don’t love you the way God loves you, even when those institutions claim to represent God. A vertical shift in life focus can minimize the trauma of shaming wounds. May we all find the courage to lift our eyes to God’s shining face despite the abuse, rejection, and shame brought upon us by the institutions of which we are a part.
God’s shining face is needed as we go through seasons of difficulty in our lives. Several years ago, we lost my father and my father-in-law within a fairly short manner of time, and we entered into a difficult season of loss. Complicated by the mental illnesses from which they both suffered, we found ourselves burdened by travel, care management, and legal issues resolving their estates. It was one of those seasons in life you retrospectively look back and say, “Wow, I went through all that?” I can’t imagine going through life’s difficult seasons, wondering if God put me there on purpose because it's all a part of a divine plan, which includes pain and suffering. There’s a better way to see life. The shining face of God glimmers brightest in our darkest hours, dissolving fears of punishment and wrath. This is the main point of Hebrews 4: 16, where an invitation to approach God confidently and receive grace in our time of need is found. With all our sadness, grief, and laments, we go directly before God to obtain mercy. The audacious hope of this book is that you will be awakened to God’s shining face no matter what season of life you find yourself in.
Following Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, there was a forty-day interlude before his ascension to heaven. Jesus appeared to many in the resurrected bodily form at this time, including his closest followers. If I could return in time, I would want to have encountered Jesus this way. It fascinates me to no end that Jesus was the face of God, standing in our midst, beckoning us to behold his resurrected glory. At any rate, Jesus then went with his followers to the Mount of Olives before ascending into heaven. The Bible tells us that he lifted both hands and proclaimed a blessing over them. Some Jewish scholars believe the blessing He pronounced was none other than the Aaronic blessing, which was followed by: “And they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God” (Lk. 24:52). I hope this blesses you as much as it does me. The shining face of God is ours to behold now and forever. Amen.
For more of this content, contact me directly for an early-release copy of my book, which includes discussion guides and spiritual practices for each chapter.
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Good essay!