God’s grace

He Still Comes

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And the Lord came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth. 1 Samuel 3:10 KJV

I once spent two years commuting two hours each way to my job. Since it was so far, I spent the week with friends in one state, while my wife and our two children lived in another. At first, I hardly noticed, but the pressure was taking its toll. Some mornings I would wake up, wondering where I was and spiritually, I was growing distant from God. Without God’s grace and my wife’s patience and prayers we would not have made it through. During that time, I often felt as if God was so far away that I could never get back to Him. Then one afternoon as I was driving home and listening to a message on Christian radio, my heart was so moved that unexpected tears began to flow down my cheeks. In that moment it felt as if Jesus had just opened the door of my pickup truck and slid into the passenger seat.

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Though my situation was different than Samuel’s, it is interesting that, like me Samuel was outwardly fulfilling his duties, but the Bible tells us that in spite of all he was doing right, he still didn’t know the Lord. Yet despite him being the unlikeliest of candidates, God chose Samuel to be a prophet. Notice, it doesn’t say that “Samuel was praying.” Or that “Samuel had some burning desire to hear from God.” No, Samuel was sound asleep, and God just came! That should give us all hope, because no matter who we are or what our circumstances we are in, God can also come for us. When He does, like Samuel we need to answer and tell Him, “Lord we are listening. Thank you for remembering me!”

A Prodigal Grace

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And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.  Luke 15:20 ESV

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After the war, my dad ran a beauty shop for most of his adult life. In those days, shops were open from Tuesday through Saturday. Of course that did not mean he only worked five days. Oh no! Monday was the day when dad would clean the chairs, hairdryers, floor and the bathroom. Then, just when you might think that we were done, dad came home and took out an old fashioned accounting ledger, and balanced his books for the week. Now my dad was pretty special, but in those days one thing he did made me very uncomfortable. That one thing was his Italian manner of kissing me on both cheeks on occasion. Maybe when the prodigal son first came home he felt a little like me. He was stumbling home in rags after having wasted all that his father had given to him and the real embarrassment was not his father’s love, but his lack of any idea of how to love him in return. In my own case, when I frustrated my dad with teenage behavior, was ungrateful and rarely acknowledged that he was ever right, he just kept on loving me. That is not to say dad ever liked, accepted or encouraged my mistakes, but no matter how often I rejected his values or hurt his feelings, he kept on loving and caring about me.

That love of my dad, was great, but it was only a pale shadow of the love and grace of Jesus Christ. The baffling thing about that kind of grace is that when God sits down to His ledger book, there is no accounting practice that can explain why He should want to balance our debt of sin against the price of our redemption. But like the prodigal’s father, God runs and embraces us while we are still on the way home to Him, and then kisses us on both cheeks. The first kiss, was planted as Jesus suffered in agony on the cross for the sins we committed. The second kiss was given outside the empty tomb on Sunday morning, when He comforted Mary while she wept, and then appeared saying, “Don’t be afraid!” to the eleven disciples while they hid behind locked doors. How can we answer such prodigal grace? His answer is an invitation us to come home to Him, receive the cleansing of His blood, be filled with His Spirit and yield to the embrace of His amazing love!

Sufficient Grace

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Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  2 Corinthians 12:8-9a ESV

Ironically, while I was feeling terrific, heading into Easter weekend I wrote a post about God’s Selah and rest. That all sounded great to my ears when I clicked on publish, and we hurried on with our plans to celebrate Easter. It is amazing what a difference just a few days have made! On Monday evening Nancy and I both starting feeling poorly, but we shrugged it off as being just another virus. Though we didn’t have much of a fever we became incredibly weak, and Nancy almost took a tumble in the living room. (Fortunately, she only ended up sitting down suddenly on the couch!) So, by this morning we had the sneaking suspicion it might be Covid, and sure enough our test kits confirmed it (Not a yippee moment!) For those wondering about it, I of course immediately called our doctor. Our unrelenting weakness has driven us to ask for healing and strength, every time we pray, but so far it feels more like we are stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits than camping on a mountaintop with Jesus. This has given me new appreciation for Paul’s insistent triple prayer for his thorn to be removed. Yet in spite of Paul’s faithfulness, God not only did not remove the thorn, He also didn’t even give Paul an answer till HIs third prayer. The passage tells us that God did this to keep Paul humble, but I believe He also did it for the rest of us in our weaknesses. We learn here that Paul was not just some special Saint, with a halo hovering over his head, but he was also a perfect example of God’s grace in weakness and an encouragement to those of us who are walking the same path.