I’m not about to write a “Myself” essay. Remember those essays we had to write in primary school? They felt very indulgent and by the time you were done, your teacher actually knew all about your short life. Not that we cared.
Grace.
Undeserved favour. Like when you forgot to send the email and the client gets upset and then you get a salary raise.
Undeserved favour. Like when you kill a man because you don’t agree with his views. But you don’t go to prison for it. In fact, no one remembers.
Undeserved favour. Like when you get pregnant for your husband’s best friend and then get to marry the man of your dreams.
Oh yes, we all want to know the backstory of these things but the grace of God doesn’t check your backstory. In fact, grace does not make sense. There is no 1 plus 1 equals 2. It is irrational. It leaves mercy far behind like me running beside Usain Bolt. Grace is the ultimate expression of love wrapped up in the loveliness of Jesus.
Undeserved favour.
Sometimes, everything changes. Anything that can go bad, does. Spectacularly. So bad that when the dust settles, you are limping in the middle of a lot of broken pieces. Pain is a very private experience and speaking about it does not often do it justice because it is not rational. It is human.
In pain we find a new respect for hope because you can’t find it.
Enter grace. The undeserved favour of God. When you know you are in deep trouble (sometimes of your own making) and cannot help yourself and then someone picks you up and says you are going to be all right, and not just all right, but fabulously so.
I’ve been a missionary kid all my life and that’s “worse” than being a pastor’s kid in the sense that you belong everywhere and nowhere. So yes, like the Apostle Paul, I know what’s up when it comes to God and Christianity. But people, I’m telling you, I had been missing it all along until I stumbled on what the grace of God actually means. It blows my mind. It doesn’t have to take a bucket load of fails and spills to bring you here. You don’t have to try at life anymore because everything you are not, Jesus is for you.
You are allowed to be relentlessly optimistic. And lost hope? By the grace of God, you can find it again. You don’t have to accept the world’s “new normal”. But accept God’s normal.
I write for you today so that you know that the life we live, we live by faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us. And even though we are flawed, He doesn’t see it.
So what’s your challenge today? What’s eating you up? What’s beating you down? Look to Jesus. Don’t look to your circumstances but trust the One who loves you. These are not conventional times. The news is not going to help any of us. Talking about it is not the way out. The way out is Jesus, our confident, expectation of good in our lives.
And His abundant grace is waiting for you. Have a great week! And let me know how you’re doing.
Stay high on grace.
HIGH ON GRACE 