Favor. Ahh. How refreshing when someone acts toward us in a way that communicates approval, kindness, good will and high regard. How stunning, how deeply satisfying, when God himself grants us favor. How delightful to find:

God’s favor is one with his grace. When the Lord bestows favor, it’s freely given – indeed, superabundantly given. Ah, but it’s not arbitrary, nor cheap.

For the Eternal God is a sun and shield. The Eternal grants favor and glory; He doesn’t deny any good thing to those who live with integrity. (Ps. 84:11 Voice)

For the eyes of the Lord roam throughout the earth, so that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His. (2 Chron. 16:9)

Count it all joy, dear one:

The Lord looks with favor on anyone whose heart cries to be wholly his.

What’s more, the Father has made the way in his Son for anyone to have such a heart – by grace, through faith. And all through time, the Lord has seen every heart that beats with his.

Surrounded with God’s favor

Long ago, God found such a heart in a shepherd boy. When God looked at that boy, he already saw the man that David would become. And so the prophet Samuel said to Israel’s King Saul:

The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command. (1 Sam. 13:14)

As a result of that revelation, Saul resented David. As resentment festered, it turned malevolent.

For years, Saul profoundly abused David. Relentlessly, he falsely accused David and influenced others to mistreat him. Repeatedly, Saul tried to destroy David. As David fled and hid, he cried out to the Lord. In laments like Psalm 5, he described the attitudes and acts of his abusers. And then he cried:

Surely, Lord, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield. (Ps. 5:12)

In the song of rest that we call Psalm 23, David described some ways God’s favor had shielded and shined on him:

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows. (Ps. 23:5)

Shedding shame, receiving favor

Of all the things that can block us from receiving favor, shame may be the most powerful. Shame could have blocked David again and again.

Those times when we have undealt-with shame in our life, we may be acutely aware of it. Or it may be very hidden from us, even as it wreaks havoc in and through us.

I wrote the post, Can we talk about shame? because it’s crucial to face into shame, in order to walk free from it. I recommend that post as a “prequel” to this one. For the more God frees us from shame, the more we can embrace his favor.

How can it happen, how can it look, to receive favor from God? We can learn much from the lives of real people who lived long ago.

To start, let’s focus once more on David’s life.

David – Affirmed by God

The youngest of Jesse’s eight sons, David spent much of his boyhood in the fields, tending sheep. It was a lowly job. Worse, when Samuel the prophet showed up, ready to anoint one of Jesse’s sons as king, Jesse gathered all his sons – except David. Then he put forward each one of his sons – except David.

How shaming! Until Samuel confronted Jesse with the question, “Are these all the sons you have?” (1 Sam. 16:11), Jesse did not even name David among his sons. And Jesse acted in ways designed to block David from receiving honor from someone else.

Yet, when David wrote Psalm 23, he said nothing of his earthly father forgetting him in the fields. Rather, he sang to his heavenly Father:

You honor me by anointing my head with oil. (NLT)

David was still “little more than a boy” when King Saul assembled an army to fight the Philistines. David’s three oldest brothers joined Saul’s troops. “But David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father’s sheep” (1 Sam. 17:15).

One day, Jesse sent David from the fields to take provisions to his brothers. When David saw Goliath defying “the armies of the living God,” he determined to fight the giant in the name of the Lord. His oldest brother brutally shamed him and Saul ill-equipped him, yet an undeterred David killed Goliath with a sling and a stone.

Afterward, “Saul kept David with him” and “gave him a high rank in the army” (1 Sam. 18:2, 5). But seeing David shine, King Saul let resentment stew. The rest of Saul’s life was consumed by a toxic mix of lies, fear, anger, jealousy and ill will, all poisoning Saul with the false belief that David was his enemy – his greatest enemy.

Yet even during the years when David was shunned and shamed and exiled – by another father figure he looked up to and wanted to please – David could sing to the Lord his King:  

You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. (NLT)

Ultimately, David did become king – first, of two tribes; seven years later, of all Israel. More years passed. And then, in the big middle of all the visible favor and honor that accrued to him, David did the unthinkable: He sexually abused a woman named Bathsheba. And when she became pregnant by him, David murdered her husband Uriah.

God’s favor did not shield David from the huge consequences of such shameful behavior, nor from the aftershocks that rippled through his family again and again. But because David faced into his sin and confessed and truly repented, God was with him through it all. And God’s testimony of David did not change. In Acts 13:22 we read:

God testified concerning him: “I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.”

Writing Psalm 51, David publicly owned his sin. He expressed his brokenness and contrition, and he cried out for God’s forgiveness and cleansing. When the Lord renewed in him a pure heart and a steadfast spirit, a chastened and humbled David could once again sing to his Savior:

My cup overflows with blessings. (NLT)

Because David did not let shame remain undealt-with at any stage in his life, it did not stop him from resting in the favor of his Lord.

Mary – A delight to God

Before Jesus’ conception, an angel visited a woman so young we would view her as a girl. Standing before Mary, the angel announced:

Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you. (Luke 1:28)

A stunned Mary did not immediately feel favored. To the contrary, she “was greatly troubled” (v. 29). The angel spoke again:

Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. (Luke 1:30)

Yet, what Mary experienced in the years that followed didn’t look at all as we might expect the favor of the Lord to look.

As people whispered about a Son they supposed illegitimate, who grew up to be a preacher they thought insane, Mary herself became confused and concerned.

As she watched her Son be betrayed and falsely accused, and agonize and die on a cross, she grieved for him with every fiber of her being.

Through it all, she felt the disgrace that her greatest obedience had brought.

At the cross, Mary might have cried with the psalmist:

How long will you people turn my glory into shame? (Ps. 4:2)

But on the heels of her deepest anguish came even deeper joy – joy that remained. Jesus’ resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit affirmed the blessing, the anointing, the favor God had bestowed on Mary from the start.

The hard-hearted still didn’t get it. But those with eyes to see have delighted in God’s delight in his daughter. Most fully and deeply refreshed was Mary herself.

Zacchaeus – Transformed by God

By contrast, the chief tax collector named Zacchaeus should have been ashamed. He had amassed power and wealth built on other people’s backs. Yet Zacchaeus humbled himself, came to Jesus, turned from his wrongs and worked to make things right with everyone he had cheated.

Receiving Zacchaeus by grace, Jesus bore the tax collector’s shame and, in exchange, gave him God’s favor.

Not everyone would see that. Many would continue to despise Zacchaeus because of his job. Yet the shaming could no longer attach, as Zacchaeus literally feasted with Jesus in the presence of people who counted him their enemy, and as he learned to receive true abundance from his Lord.

The Israelites – Feasting with God

Centuries earlier, the Israelites feasted in the presence of their enemies too. They feasted twice, in fact – just before they left Egypt, and just after entering the Promised Land.

In Egypt. The Israelites were enslaved for generations by the most powerful nation on earth. Prior to leading them out, the Lord told them, in essence: “First, observe Passover. First, feast with me in the presence of your enemies. Then, you’ll experience the overflowing cup of deliverance.”

The Israelites were not to scurry out of Egypt in terror, but rather to march out from a place of favor and rest. And they did!

Afterward, the people rejoiced. But then, a year later, they refused to follow God into the land he had promised them. As a result, they wandered for 40 years.

On entering the Promised Land. At last, God opened a way through the Jordan River, and a new generation crossed with Joshua into Canaan. With the river at their backs and no experience in combat, they faced powerful nations, determined to wipe them out.

Temporarily, those nations were stunned by the miracle they had just witnessed. But the Israelites didn’t know that. They might well have balked at God’s first order: to circumcise all the men born in the wilderness.

The previous generation would have cried: “Now, God?! Now, you want us to incapacitate every one of our warriors? Are you trying to kill us all?”

But the Joshua generation trusted and obeyed God. And then, with all their warriors still healing and with danger on every side, the Lord told them to observe Passover. He said, in essence: “Before you possess one inch of this land, feast with me in the presence of your enemies.”

The people obeyed this command too. Throwing off the shame associated with centuries of slavery and decades of wandering, they set out to claim their inheritance from a place of favor and rest.

I will rest in your favor

Lord my Father, my Savior, my King:

When shame covers me, I will not try to hide, from myself or from you. By grace, I will let you expose what makes me flush or cringe or want to disappear. I’ll let you uncover what has shamed me for much of my life.

I believe your word to me, that you do not expose to humiliate, but rather to redeem and reconcile, to heal and to free.

You remove every label falsely applied to me. You evict all shame I’ve carried as a result of shameful things others have said and done to me.

You teach me to embrace my human weaknesses and flaws. You teach me to walk with you as you redeem them all. And you teach me to embrace the glory of my humanness. You remind me: I am a person, created in your image. You show me my innate value and my great worth in your eyes.

You also give me grace to see my sins and to call them what you call them. You give me strength to turn and walk in newness of life, as you wash those sins away.

Holy Lord, gracious Lord, you do not stop with removing shame. Extravagantly, you bestow favor.

You set a table for me right in front of my enemies.

You lead me to a place of honor, to feast there on your favor, even when unseen enemies – and the people cooperating with them – try their best to keep me in the same defeated place I used to be.

You bathe my head in oil; my cup is so full it spills over!

Spirit-to-spirit, I learn to receive honor and blessing from you. I quit defining favor in the ways I’ve believed it must look. Regardless who sees it and who does not, I delight in the acceptance, insight, creativity and anointing that you pour out on me. More and more, I live from your fullness, as it wells up in me and flows out from me.

I praise you Lord my Shepherd. You have overcome for me all the shame that ever has or ever will attach to me. You are teaching me to overcome it too. By your grace, I drink deeply of your favor, and it restores my rest.

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Adapted from Return to Your Rest: A Spirit-to-spirit Journey, © 2016, 2019.

Image by Reinhold Silbermann from Pixabay

Companion post

Can we talk about shame?

Posts in the Song of Rest series

• Psalm 23: Song of rest
• I shall not want: Resting in God’s provision
• He restores my soul: Resting in God’s unforced rhythms
• I will fear no evil: Resting in God’s very present help
• My cup overflows: Resting in God’s favor
• Now and forever: Resting in God’s love

See also

• Heartcry of one who overcomes
• I AM the one you seek
• The blessing of the Lord
• The blessing of rest
• Resented without a cause
• A sign and a wonder: The amazing grace cycle
• Deep dive into grace in The Esther Blessing: Grace to Reign in Life