Up the Sunbeam

-- There are few things as toxic to a relationship as disapproval. Husbands and wives, parents and children, pastors and congregations, employers and employees, teachers and students and among friends--disapproval does damage and leaves wounds that rarely heal on their own.  Stories abound of grown men and women who find themselves crippled in their adult lives because on some level, they are still trying to win the approval of fault-finding, never-satisfied parents, sometimes years, even decades after those parents have been laid to rest. Spirits wither and waste under the harsh, hot glare of disapproval and I pray that as a fallible, imperfect parent, I would not fall into communicating in ways that feel like criticism and disapproval to my children. Human disapproval is bad enough.  What about disapproval from God?  Isn't He always stern and endlessly disapproving, looking with disdain and disgust down a long nose and a longer finger, always pointing out our fai...