My sisters come home from a wonderfully inspiring week at a ministry near to our hearts (teenpact leadership schools) talking about this word ~ grace. They explained it was what God used to touch their hearts and how they are learning greater depths of giving grace to themselves and others....
I smile at their joy & share in their gratitude for this grace, and I do not think much more. I do not think about this word being something that I have starved my life of.
A few days later, last Thursday, I talked with a dear friend & she shares how she is learning and growing in grace. She speaks of how she is realizing that if you do not embrace grace from God towards yourself, that you will not show grace to others.
I think of my own life. I try SO HARD to be perfect, to do it all right. I like my t's crossed and my i's dotted. I stay after work 30 minutes sometimes to do little things that matter little, just so I can be as close to perfect as possible. I stress about the future and about making choices, fearing all along that I will make a mistake or do something that is not best. I cling to actions of trying hard and I mourn when I fall short, resolving to make better to-do lists. Those to-do lists do not help much. I fail again.
The grace I show to others is even more sparse. Constantly, I see faults and compare and disapprove of the actions of others. I hold others to a perfect standard, often.
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Then, someone speaks these words on Thursday evening, "The (old testament) law was not created to make you perfect. The law was not created to make you righteous. The law was created to make you repentant."
My heart's eyes open & I see. My deep need, my inability to be perfect is my opportunity to need God, to depend on Him, to walk with Him. My inability leads me to Christ's sufficency. I am led to the gift of His grace to me!
I realize my need for the cross, for Jesus to be my righteousness, because I can never do it all right.
Not to confuse & think that I do not need to grow in Christ's likeness, strive to be more like Jesus. I think grace scares me sometimes because I think I will become like those who live in outright sin and disobedience, saying God's grace covers them & what they do means nothing.
No. But, I am realizing grace is found as I strive after Christ & realize I cannot follow Him on my own. I need God, I need forgiveness, I need grace.
As I go through days unfocused and staggering, may my heart's song become the whispering, "Heavenly Father, I need you!" May failures and inperfections become my greatest reminder of the cross.
I am far from that. These words sound so put together. My heart is not.
"Jesus bent low, God carrying my rotting mess, Grace doing what I cannot do, and I cannot ascend to God but He will descend to me....the deeper I know the pit of my sin, the deeper I’ll drink from the draughts of joy.
Grief is what cultivates the soil for the seeds of joy.
She who knows her sins much, loves much, and the road to heaven is paved with the realization that I deserve hell. His rising will be all my joy, because I know it in the marrow of the bones: He is all my hope." (Ann Voskamp; http://www.aholyexperience.com/2014/03/why-you-may-really-really-need-lent-this-year-and-a-free-family-lent-easter-devotional/)
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