I Am Redeemed

I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.

—Isaiah 44:22

I like to think of myself as an easy-to-please wife.

(But let’s not invite my husband into this conversation, shall we?)

I don’t need fancy cars or houses. For Christmas and birthdays, I prefer homemade gifts, handwritten notes, and time spent together more than anything purchased. I’m not much of a shopper, nor do I like going out to eat. When it comes to date nights, all I need is one night a month and a babysitter who covers the bedtime routine. Amen, hallelujah. And rather than fancy dinners and dancing lessons, I’d just as soon go out for buffalo wings and a ballgame.

However, if my husband was to give me the gift of all gifts, it would be this: a promise to take a long walk with me once a week.

An easy-to-please wife, right?

However. Taking walks is not my husband’s thing. Not at all. I could fill up page after page of ways he cares for me and serves me without the slightest complaint. But going for a walk? He’d rather have all his teeth and toenails pulled out. At the same time.

All this is to say, for nearly two decades, I’ve asked this precious man of mine to go for a walk with me. After nearly two decades, I can count on one hand the number of times that little dream has come true.

Which is why last Valentine’s Day surprised me. Along with a perfect bouquet of red roses waiting for me when I came down the stairs, I also found a sealed envelope with a card inside. Inside the card was a handmade certificate. From my husband. For one long walk. Together.

Glory. I don’t know what got into that man, but I wasn’t going to knock it. I saved that certificate for just the right day, just the right evening, when we could take a walk together during a spectacular Colorado sunset. I couldn’t wait to cash in my card. The redemption was the sweetest part of the gift.

We know this, right? Every time we receive a gift card or a gift certificate, we don’t get excited about the piece of plastic or the thin piece of paper. We’re excited about what the card or certificate represents. What we hold in our hands isn’t the offering but a promise of the redemption yet to come.

To redeem means to make an exchange. A coupon for a latte. A certificate for a massage. A gift card for a $200 shopping spree at our favorite store. What we hold in our hands will eventually be redeemed for something far better than a piece of paper or plastic.

When it comes to my life, there are too many parts I wish I could redeem for something better. For example:

I digress.

My point is this: all of us would like to make a few exchanges if we could. We’d like to experience a redemption of our circumstances for a promise of something much better yet to come.

But no matter how much I’d like that exchange to be made, it’s usually impossible. I can’t go back in time and take back a harsh word or undo a reckless decision. I can’t redeem my years of untried parenting for my current hard-earned experience. I can’t erase my many sins and flaws for a whole and righteous life.

Unless.

Unless I relinquish my flawed life to hands that can redeem it.

“So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the LORD came to me. He said, ‘Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?’ declares the LORD. ‘Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel’” (Jer. 18:3–6).

What is marred in my hands becomes pottery in progress in His. To me, the form and shape of my life look irreparable. To the Potter? He sees an opportunity to show off His best work. All of it is redeemable. The impossible and imperfect, the broken and beat up. Nothing is wasted in His expert hands as He remakes us into something beautiful.

He doesn’t remove our flaws. He redeems them.

He doesn’t bury the past. He uses it.

Beauty for ashes, gladness for mourning, praise for despair (Isa. 61:1–4).

Why? Because it shows off His glory.

And because He loves nothing more than to take a long walk with us, flaws and all.

God is absolutely sovereign . . . He rejoices in all His works when He contemplates them as colors of the magnificent mosaic of redemptive history. He is an unshakably happy God.

—JOHN PIPER, DESIRING GOD