I’ve had fascinating conversations over the past few years with new believers or people who just returned to their faith after walking away for a few years. Often, their main question is, “What now?”; they struggle to figure out how to juggle their newfound love of Jesus with the baggage they carry, their doubts, and their other loves that aren’t all that ‘proper.’ It’s certainly a process; there’s no simple formula, and it’ll take time to figure it out. But the starting point always has to be God’s unbelievable love for us.
An interesting term for this that I had never heard before is “divine accommodation.” I had no idea what it was, but once I understood it, I realized it was sprinkled throughout Scripture! “Divine accommodation” is a fancy theological term that means that God steps down to our level of understanding and meets us where we are, just like an adult would accommodate a child. It may look like God patiently waiting in our immaturity until we are ready to obey Him or even a compromise for something that was not His plan to grant us free will, just like He did when the Israelites wanted a king like all the other nations.
There are amazing examples of God accommodating us to meet us where we are. But as we often say at Lifecentre, “God loves us just the way we are, but He loves us too much to leave us the way we are.” Although God may initially accommodate our flaws, immaturity, lack of understanding, stubbornness, and pride, He ultimately wants to lead us out of those places and walk us into a better, healthier, holier place. This process is called “sanctification,” where God takes us “from glory to glory.”
There are many examples of God graciously accommodating us; a classic example in the Old Testament is when the Israelites demanded a human king and God compromised by granting this request. The original plan was for God to lead them as their true king, but the Israelites rejected Him and wanted someone else (1 Samuel 8:7). God accommodated their request and allowed a human king to rule (imperfectly) over Israel. However, prophets later spoke of a future king whose kingdom would have no end (Isaiah 9:7). Although God initially accommodated their flawed request, He planned to bring His people back to a place of being led by Him as their one true king.
One of the many amazing things about divine accommodation is God’s high tolerance for our messy process. Since He is an all-powerful God who can do anything at the snap of a finger, it’s often easy to forget that He is the God of both instantaneous miracles and slow processes. God has a high tolerance for the slow, frequently messy, and occasionally confusing process that begins where we are and takes us on a long, winding journey of increasingly closer encounters with Him. Through these encounters, we are slowly transformed into something new that bears the mark of having met the One who has no equals, the One who is different from anything or anyone else we could ever encounter, and the One who is Holy.
In other words, God’s willingness to meet us where we are, this “divine accommodation,” can also be seen as His invitation for us to journey with Him. As we encounter Him along this journey, we are slowly transformed and becoming holy ourselves.
God, help us encounter You more deeply because we know there is always more when we journey with You. Thank You for meeting us where we are and loving us in spite of our sins, flaws, immaturity and foolishness. As we pursue You, mark us with Your nature, make us holy as You are holy. Amen.
