May 26, 2009 @ 10:03 am | Filed under: Soul Food
grace: unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification b: a virtue coming from God c: a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace
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I can’t get away from it this morning.
I woke up with these words, a space of grace, trailing again and again across my mind. I wanted to write about something entirely different here this morning, but the right words for that post are just too elusive. And so I’m giving in to the words that are here, and I’m exploring them.
I’ve always known these spots existed, these spaces of grace, but I’ve never had reason to put a name or a description to what they were, or what they meant to my life. They are these “pockets of time” in our spiritual journey when we experience moments so filled with His power that we are literally enabled to do what we could not do before.
Things seem to both, accelerate and slow at the same time. Oftentimes our learning, our talents, and our abilities will seem to be fastracked during these periods even while our observations, our reflections, and our times of meditation are slowed and filled with enormous amounts of clarity.
For some, these may be the times when they capture the vision of what they have to offer to the world around them, and they go for it. For others, these moments may be where they find strength to see their way out of temptations, and do. For still others, it is a time of discovering their voice, their passion, their ability to lead, and they step out in faith.
A space of grace is when we find ourselves in that holy place where heaven touches earth and we happen to be standing in the middle of it.
I saw a billboard a few weeks back that simply read, touching heaven, changing lives. That’s what this life is truly about, whether that life that becomes changed is someone else’s or our own.
For me, many of these times have meant moments of ‘lightbulb revelations’ - times when His word suddenly became real to me in ways that I’d either not understood before, or simply not seen before. It is during these times that I soak up, absorb, crave…more, more, more of Him. It is always a time of thankfulness, a time of rejuvenation, a time of a lot less struggle and a lot more energy.
Sometimes these pockets of time last days, sometimes months. To be honest, when the day would eventually come that I would realize that once more I seemed to be deep in the mire and muck that is daily life I would feel a bit of disappointment in myself.
I think - even though until now I’ve not taken the time to analyze these times - I thought that I had somehow brought myself to that spot with God. That my own spirituality had somehow merited me this favored time with Him. So if I’d brought myself to this special place, then it would only stand to reason that it would be ME who took myself away from it, who brought about the end of something so precious, so sacred.
Thinking about that this morning, I feel silly. But I also feel a deep joy bubbling in my soul that just cannot be unseated.
These times - these spaces of grace - are rest stops for our soul. I picture it as though I’m on a trip, a long journey, and I pull over to the side of the road. Not necessarily for a rest, or a drink, or a bite to eat. Maybe I pull over to take out the map, look back over the miles already traveled and plan and dream and anticipate the exciting stops that lie on my horizon.
It’s a time of planning and reflection, a time to dump out the trash and fuel up with all things good. It’s a time to look back on the road behind and see - maybe for the first time in a long while - just how far along on this journey that you are, and it’s a time to look ahead, knowing now from experience that the sights, the scenery, the people might move and change or even dissipate.
But not His great love. Not His direction. Never His grace.
I’m thankful this morning for spaces of grace.
May 22, 2008 @ 5:27 pm | Filed under: Uniquely Me
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” II Timothy 1:7
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When I think about some of the women who have made the largest impact on my life, I find that these women quite often had a gentleness about them. A gentleness that I desperately would want to emulate. I can’t say the number of times that I would try to do just that, only to have my own personality rise to the surface again and again…and again.
I finally realized that I needed to embrace the ME that God created me to be. It wasn’t until I began to fall deeper and deeper into Him that I finally learned that this gentleness that I so wanted for myself was not merely a “personality” trait. It was an inherent trait that was a gift from God.
It’s not something that can be emulated. It’s not something that can even really be learned. It is simply something that is gifted gradually, as you learn more, trust more, give in more…to Him.
I read these words this morning, “A quiet and gentle spirit is a heart free from fear.”
I had to read it several times and think about it. And then read it a few more times. That is a powerful statement and, the more I read it, the more God opened up my understanding of it.
I’ve always wanted that gentleness for myself.
But I’ve always struggled with the fear factor.
Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Fear of letting someone down, of dropping an important ball. Fear of the unexpected. Fear of the future. Fear of the past. Fear of my accomplishments.
In hindsight, it’s fear that has made me occasionally do some of those kind of crazy things. Fear speaks without thinking. Fear freaks out. It wanders on its own for solutions and explanations. It races to “fix things,” or at least searches for a way to figure them out.
Fear fusses and fidgets, messes and obsesses.
This morning my heart is repentant and I kneel before Him with an all-new understanding of both, fear and gentleness. I’ll try to remember from now on to fear in only these ways:
- Protected: “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them:” (Psalm 34:7)
- Given wisdom: “Who are those who fear the Lord? He will show them the path they should choose” (Psalm 25:12, NLT)
- A friend of God: “Friendship with the Lord is reserved for those who fear Him. With them He shares the secrets of His convenant.” (Psalm 25:14, NLT)
- Secure in God’s love: “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him.” (Psalm 103:11)
- Provided for by God: “Fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.” (Psalm 34:9)
- Satisfied: “The fear of the Lord leads to life, and he who has it will abide in satisfaction; he will not be visited with evil” (Proverbs 19:23, NKJV)
I want a lot, spiritually speaking. If I were to make a wish-list for all that I desire in this realm, I’d be hard-pressed to know what I want most. But I do know that somewhere very close to the top of that list would be this gentleness that is bred only by being rooted and secure in Him. In times of stress or lonely drought, I want to exercise faith, not fear. I want to radiate peace and joy.
I want a fearless beauty.
