Grace

I was supposed to blog a few months ago, but was way too busy.  I had the perfect title too, but as always God had better plans than me.  Today I want to share something that has been on my heart for a long time.  I realize some of the things that I will share today aren't new, but please read anyway. :-) I have always heard that  grace is God's unmerited favor.  So when I would think about grace, I would think of the things God has done for me; how he has performed if you will.  A little over a year ago I began to thank God for his grace all the time.  I don't know why it weighed heavily on my mind, but I would make a point to thank him for his grace and mercy daily.  I'd never really thought to study what it actually meant. I knew it was something good and that was good enough for me.

Well here I am again and this subject of grace keeps coming up.  So I decided to seek it out.  Now lets back up just a few months.  I'm in grad school, working full time, married with 3 kids and running a house that we just moved into about 3 months ago.  No time for myself at all.  Giving little attention to my husband and kids.  My life is in constant action.  Knowing I need to sped time with God, I would send up a quick prayer either right before heading out the door or in my car on the way to work.  If I got a chance to read a few scriptures and pray, I thought I was the bomb.  However, I wasn't doing this for myself.  I was doing this for God.    It was most of the time a generic prayer and I didn't get much out of the scripture I read most of the time.  In my mind, this is how I would keep my good graces with God.  Well, I've been in school for almost a year now, but about 5 months ago, I began to feel so out of touch with God.  I was too busy though to sit down and try to figure out what the problem was.  All the housework, schoolwork, loving on my family, cleaning my house and doing my job all the the glory of the Lord (so I told myself).  I was not enjoying one bit of my life.  People kept telling me to slow down.  I didn't listen.  I was doing what God required me to do.  So much so that I began to become a perfectionist.  If I couldn't give everything I had going on 100% I felt like a failure to my family and God.  Nothing was ever good enough.  So what did I do?  I worked harder. :-)  To the point where a few weeks ago my body began to shut down and my doctor told me if I didn't get some real rest it would only get worse.  I was so sick, I couldn't do anything.  My mind raced constantly with all the things I could be doing while I laid there in bed.  It took me 3 weeks to realize that I still had not gotten any real rest. 

Resting and resting in God are 2 different things.  My body had rested, but I had not allowed myself to rest in God.  After all, I wasn't doing anything. Because I had not come to understand the totality of God's grace, I wouldn't allow myself to rest in God.  I wasn't good enough.  I hadn't done enough good yet.  One day not long ago it hit me.  If I could do good works everyday in order to go to heaven, then why did Jesus have to die on the cross? The Message Bible reads in the last few verses of Galatians 2 as follows:

            What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please
             God and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God man.

I didn't even know this was in the Bible.  I'm sure I read over it many times, but it never meant anything to me until God began to reveal the true meaning of grace to me.  I'll never be good enough.  I'll never do enough to deserve what Christ did for me.  I'll mess up everyday for the rest of my life.  He still wants to live in me.  He still wants to intercede on my behalf to the heavenly father.  That's what grace is; His covering for my multitude of sin knowing I'll never deserve it.  I am resting in his arms now.  I no longer feel the need to perform for his love, grace and mercy.  I'm free.  The bondage of being a circus animal is no longer my life.  I've been saved for over 15 years and it took that long for me o truly understand the grace of God, but it came at the right time in my life.  If God had tried to get this in my head years ago, it would not have meant so much to me.  He began this yearning to know the true meaning of his grace over a year ago and it pummeled me when I needed it most.

What does this have to do with marriage you ask?  At one time in my life I performed for my husband as well and he for me.  We pretended to know what marriage was all about and did the things we thought we were supposed to do to maintain our relationship.  When the hard times came though, we had nothing to stand on.  We didn't have a friendship and didn't understand what "for better or worse" really meant.  We had to learn how to extend God's grace to one another before I really knew what God's grace meant to me personally.  I say that to say this, some of you beat up on yourselves because you think you're not good enough at being a wife, husband, provider or whatever the case may be.  Rest in the father and allow him to shower you with his grace.  Stop trying to perform and just allow him to work on you, in you and through you daily.  You don't have to be perfect, just a willing vessel.

EM