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We all crave the delight of another's face because we were designed for it. In Numbers 6, this is God's face shining upon us.
Chris and Beth Bruno host conversations at the intersection of psychology and theology. This podcast is powered by ReStory Counseling.
00:09
Want to know what it takes to Restore Your Life? We are Chris and Beth Bruno and we lead a team of brilliant story work counselors around the country all committed to helping you come alive. We call it the Restorey Approach. So if you're a story explorer, kingdom seeker, or just a day-to-dayer, you've come to the right place. Welcome to the Restorey Podcast.
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So you and I went a long time without being invited to weddings. We, it was just no longer our age group, our life stage. Everybody we knew was already married. We weren't yet old enough for like our kids to be getting married. And then like suddenly this year we've gone to two and it's been over a decade. And like we almost forgot how this whole thing works. And it's so funny this...
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my cousin's wedding that just happened, the whole millennial, you know, weddings is just a whole nother ball game. And anyways, for both of them though, this past year to, to be able to strategically sit where I could easily look to my left and see his face and look to my right and see her walking down the aisle and
01:38
Oh, it's emotional just to think about their faces lighting up. And for the guys, both of them tearing up, like just struggling to stay, you know, composed when they behold the face of their bride. It's so powerful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And right now, even tears in your eyes is like this evidence of, oh, there is something so beautiful about that moment.
02:06
one of the weddings I officiated. And so I was able to be right up there next to the groom when she kind of came around the corner and came down the stairs towards him. And so I couldn't see his face, but I could see hers. And there was this evidence on her face that it was just, like you said, glowing and just lit up in such a way that...
02:30
was like, I have arrived and all of my delight is on my face. And I could see her find him immediately. She was not looking for anyone else in that crowd as she was descending the stairs and coming down into the area, but she locked into his face. And there was so much communication that was happening between the two of them in that as she walked down.
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and saw him and he saw her. It was so beautiful. Yeah, so lovely. Yeah. And it's really, that is the essence of delight. I mean, is there a better image that all of us can just immediately conjure up in our minds? Like, we know what that looks like, that just ultimate, pure, just full of expectation delight. And that's what we're going to talk about.
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this week is kind of the last part of this series that we've been doing on the Numbers 6 Aaronic Blessing. And we've been talking about the face of God. We talked about how He keeps us. We talked about what it looks like to receive His peace that ultimately when we have His face and when we have, when we're kept by Him, that shalom.
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is there for us that peace is the result. And then this week we're gonna talk about what does it mean in that third part, the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. Yeah, so the full blessing, it says this, it says, 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 towards you and give you peace. And so,
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here, you know, here we are, we're talking about this beautiful moment between a bride and a groom as this, and we have language for that in our, in English, right? That your face lit up, your face was shining, there was something about you that was glory, the glorious face that was coming down the aisle, right? There's, there's so much about this delight that is evident on your face. There are 43 muscles in your face.
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Only four of those muscles are used for chewing. The rest of them are used for expression. That's crazy. Isn't that crazy to think about? It's crazy to think about that. There's so many muscles that God has given us to express what is going on inside of our bodies through our face. And when a face shines, it actually takes less energy.
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for a face to shine than it is for a face to frown. Fewer muscles used. Fewer muscles, less energy. And so I just wanna believe, now I can't prove this, but I wanna believe that our faces then were designed to shine. And that the result of us living in a broken world is that we have come to understand what it feels like to frown and be sad and have a downcast face because of
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the experience that we have in this world, but our faces were designed to shine. Can you imagine Eden or the coming kingdom of God where all of pain and tears and all of the things that could be on our face that shows something downcast when all the reason for those things is removed, can you imagine what happens on all of our faces in the coming kingdom? Our faces are gonna shine.
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our faces are going to shine in. And even this is a, you know, the shining face is something that is a kind of a metaphor, something that happens repeatedly, a theme repeatedly throughout the scriptures. Here it's in number six. We see it when Moses comes down from the mountain and his face is shining to such a degree that it was unnerving to the people around because they asked him to put on a veil. And then Paul refers to this later.
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that we with unveiled faces reflect the glory of God, right? There's two one another. And so there's this idea of a shining face that is just this theme that goes throughout the scriptures. And I just wonder what it was like for Adam and Eve in the garden where there was no pain and sorrow and sin and what it will be like for us in the coming kingdom when there is no pain and sorrow and sin, what happens to our faces? And there's something that I just, I just hold there's something divine.
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that is there. There's something beautiful and glorious about God showing up on our faces on behalf of the other person. That there is something that communicates like, ah, you are delightful. You bring delight to me. You bring the fullness of pleasure and goodness and glory to me just by beholding you in all of your glory and goodness. And that's when it says in this passage.
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the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you, that there is a generativity, the graciousness of God is moving towards you in the delight of God as he's beholding who you are. So, I mean, just to sit for a moment and think, what would it be like to have God's shining face turn towards me? Well, I mean, I'm picturing the prodigal son.
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and just that picture, right, of the story of all of us having gone our own way and, you know, claimed independence and we can do this better and returning to the face of a father who is so overjoyed at our return. And then the immediate grace extended and celebration offered. And I mean, that is what comes to mind
08:34
of the Lord make his face shine on you, just like the Father's face stood there full of delight and threw a party, the ultimate of graciousness. Yeah, yeah, that is the ultimate of graciousness. And as we've said all along in this little series that we're doing is that if we were...
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If this is something that he is offering, it's something that we all long for. We long to be beheld, if that's a word, for someone to behold us with that shining delight on their face. We long for that. That means that we were designed for that.
09:11
that we want that, we need that, and that means that we were designed for it. And I love that God says that he's offering that to us. And I would say in the realm of, you know, psychology and counseling as we've talked about these last several weeks, that much of our trauma, much of our loneliness, much of our depression, much of our anxiety, much of all of the things is both the result of a lack.
09:40
of a shining face towards us, where there's not been a face turned towards us, where there's not been a face available to us, and especially a shining face turned towards us. There's been a lack of that somehow in our lives. And when there is that, how, and I'm not going to say this is a quick fix, right? But that there's how quickly we can allow for those.
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defenses to melt for our way of surviving the world or our weapons to be put down the moment that there is a shining face. Because all of a sudden, oh, I'm delighted in, I don't need to fight you anymore. I don't need to protect myself against you anymore. And there's something about that moment where a face like that is available to us.
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All things, all things become just a little bit better. Yeah. So in restoration counseling, we talk about how our psychology is informed by our theology.
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and it's beautiful to look back into the ancient wisdom of the scriptures to see what we've come to know through these modern day experiments and psychological theories and all that are embedded here in the scriptures and how our brains are actually grown and developed when we have these kinds of things. And I'm going to read the blessing one last time to kind of end the series, but I just would love for everybody to imagine the face of God.
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And then also imagine where can you find these kinds of faces around you? And if you can't, let's begin to pray for them. Let's begin to seek them. Let's begin to be open to the possibility that God might actually have them for you as well. So let me read this blessing one last time. 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 towards you and give you peace.
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Amen. Thanks for listening to the Restory podcast today. If you're curious about who we are over at Restoration Counseling, you can find links to learn more in the show notes. And I'll just say we have a lot of good stuff going on. We have a women's and men's Restory trauma intensive coming up in the next few months. Just check out Upcoming on our website. And if you're in need of some immediate intervention on a particular topic, one of our mini courses might be of interest.
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Head over to Restory Labs, our digital laboratory, to learn more, and that link will be in the show notes too. Have a great week, and join us for our next series on how to parent out of story.