enough

I woke this morning thinking about grace. I think I fell asleep thinking about grace. About accepting it, living in it, owning it. About how easy it is to lose sight of it.

Easy because I sometimes don't know what is true.

Easy because I don't have courage to stand when I do know it is true.

Because living by faith in the Son of God is harder than trying to crucify myself dead enough to deserve to live.

Christ is either enough or God is a liar.

And I don't think God is a liar.

...

Every other day these last two weeks, I have rammed up into issues with my identity. Part of me says this is because I am not doing something I am supposed to be doing; this is because I am willfully sinning. But the "sin" has no name for me to confess, and the "supposed to be doing" is so vague I wouldn't know where to begin.

I have been living under a burden of undefined expectation.

And it's a heavy one.

I am Eve lately. Believing I can be more. More than God created me. More than I already am in His grace. If I could just grow faster, deeper. Isn't there an acceleration program for Spirit-work?

I want my life to be "Christ plus..."


...

I ask how grace is real in my life, how it changes me, how it changes the way I live, how it changes the way I love.

Grace given - Flowers and time on a Saturday when I was trying to figure myself out. Here is grace on my table, sunshine when I walk into the room, bright when I am myself dark.

Conversation on Sunday when I didn't say what I thought I should say, when my heart was heard instead of my frustration. Invitation instead of reproach. Open arms where they should have been crossed.

Grace received - It softens me. It humbles me, understanding nothing but that I do not deserve this love; I do not deserve this good that I am given.

...

If the life I have I live by faith in the Son of God, this faith must be solid to compel me beyond my fear and claim my His-identity, where grace abounds and there is life abundant because I do not have to look over my shoulder and fear - fear His disapproval, fear His judgment, fear His condemnation.

This faith must be solid to claim His love, to love as He loves me alive, to lay my goals aside and refuse the fruit that would tempt me to be like God, where I am already holy as He is holy when I am clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

This faith must be the gift of God, because no decision-making or teeth-gritting brings simple peace to my day as trusting Him for His heart-work in me offers the chance for humble walking.

God does not need me to be there now, because I am His already. My hope and my ache is the redemption of my body too.

...

I am not perfect. Some who see may not see what they want to see. I see and do not see what I want to see. I look nothing like I think I should look.

It is only Christ in me that makes me God's. He is the only difference between me and anyone who does not believe Him.

The works of the flesh go by way of the Spirit, in His time, in His way. I do not often trust Him enough for this. I am not so humble.

I live in Him; I live here too.

So I think about grace, and I pray it is a more thorough cover than I believe most days when I see so much of me and not so much of Jesus.

As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness;
I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.

- Ps. 17:15

...


This post linked at Holy Experience for Walk With Him Wednesday.





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