Providence Presbyterian Church - Powdersville SC

“Sometimes, during my early-morning meditation, a place within me opens and parts of myself let go that I did not even know were holding on.

In these moments I feel all the hard parts in my heart and body yield to a great softness carried on my breath…”

Thursday of last week I was going to Columbia and passed a man on the road with car issues. It was hot; he was on the interstate, and out of gas. Do you ever feel like that….not just in your automobile, but in your life? It is when we get to this point of life that God gives us an injection of a miracle drug…a drug called grace. Grace is the fuel that keeps our souls humming and running, doing the things we need to, even in the midst of turmoil and problems, rebellious children, mean-spirited people and sometimes just plain life…

I’ve often accepted grace from God willingly, gratefully and easily. Now, extending grace can be somewhat of a different story. We studied “What’s So Amazing about Grace” in our Sunday School class not too long ago. It was amazing to hear the stories of people who faced horrific losses in their lives, some of them hurt and wounded deeply, but still they had the grace to forgive. This is where the test comes in. We want grace, but are we ready to extend grace? How do we expect God to extend His loving grace to us, as broken as most of us are, if we do not extend grace to the people in our lives who have hurt us? This is not an easy thing to do, and most of us struggle with it as long as we live, because we are human and broken.

Grace is best defined to me by the verses in Psalm 130, which I have taken from The Message. Read for a moment: “Help, God—the bottom has fallen out of my life! Master, hear my cry for help! Listen hard! Open your ears! Listen to my cries for mercy. If you, God, kept records on wrongdoings, who would stand a chance? As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit, and that's why you're worshiped. I pray to God—my life a prayer — and wait for what he'll say and do. My life's on the line before God, my Lord, waiting and watching till morning, waiting and watching till morning. O Israel, wait and watch for God — with God's arrival comes love, with GOD's arrival comes generous redemption. No doubt about it—he'll redeem Israel, buy back Israel from captivity to sin.”

I love working in our yard – when I am troubled and when I am happy. It brings me a deep sense of peace to physically exhaust myself to the duties that have to be done weekly. One has to prune, cut down, dig up, replace and the list goes on. Isn’t this true in most of our lives? Are we always pruned? Are we always in full bloom? Is our fruit always being harvested? Do things in our lives always turn out the way we want? No, but learning to extend grace to others and to ourselves is something that is vital to our growth as Christians. Grace is the fertile soil in which real life and godly nutrition is found. It takes time for our roots to become firmly established in the fertile soil of grace. Growing in grace does not mean that we will grow like dandelions…quick to grow and quick to mature, but where is the substance?

If our roots go deeply into the fertile soil of God’s grace and love, we, too, shall grow like a cedar – fine branches, high stature, thick boughs, strong roots and tall. This doesn’t happen over night, and grace is the same way. We pray to God and seek His way and let the light of grace shine deeply into the deepest crevices of our heart and then extend it to the people in our lives and families who have had bad behavior, made poor choices and show love and forgiveness.

Practice giving and receiving grace – it is God’s gift to the people of God….can we do less?
Grace and peace, Becky