Grace

To be completely honest with you, I've been dealing with some pretty big inadequacy issues lately. There are a few things in my life right now that I don't feel like I'm good enough to handle. All of this is leading me to think that I just don't have a full handle on grace and what it actually means to me.

The thing is, I get it. If you were to ask me what grace is, I could give you a pretty good explanation of it. But I just don't feel like I have a firm grasp of it if you catch the difference.

I was reading Romans 6 the other day and some verses really popped out at me and it was like God was actually showing me how incredibly logical His grace actually is.

Paul explains later in this letter that the wages of sin are death. So if the payment I owe to sin is my own death, and I died with Christ upon His calling of me to Himself, then sin's payment has been met. It is a debt that is no longer owed. It's not that God wiped it away like I never owed anything. I completely owed it. The only difference is that He paid it for me. That's what grace is!

Yet for some reason, I'm having such a hard time feeling like I could actually be worth God's time. And when you actually look at grace, one of the things that God shows through having His Son die for me is that I'm not good enough. I can't earn anything other than hell.

But, looking at the gift God has given me, I'm reminded that there are two kinds of generosity that I've been able to partake in. There's the kind of generosity that you might show to an older lady when you hold the door for her or when you buy a homeless person a meal. When I do these kinds of things, it's because it's just a nice thing to do for someone.

But I remember a little while back, I had a friend who was having some issues in his life. He had and still has so much potential. I really believe in this guy and think that amazing things are coming and are going to come out of his life. But he had a major hindrance come his way that was impeding his ability to minister to others. I saw that need, was prompted by the Holy Spirit and met it. Not because it was the right thing to do, but because I believed in him. This wasn't something I would probably do for some random homeless person. I was willing to make a sacrifice and really invest in him.

I think that every person God calls to Him, He calls because He believes that they can be used to enlarge His Kingdom in some way. There is no mediocrity in the Kingdom. Everyone was made for greatness. Perhaps not greatness by this world's standards, but greatness nonetheless. So I think that God's gift falls under the later category. God called me because He has a use for me. And no, I'm not good enough on my own. I am inadequate. But God makes up for those inadequacies.

One more cool thing happened today. I randomly read through 2 Corinthians 12. Verses 9-10 popped out to me and I guess you can see why. I don't need strengths. I have grace. I just need to learn to let God take over and not to worry about my weaknesses. I need to learn how to believe that when I'm weak, that's when I'm really strong.

Where's the leak?

I have a feeling I might have more readers if I posted more regularly, so I'm really going to work on that. If I go a while, please leave comments yelling at me for not posting. Anyway, on to the show!

I've been growing an insanely large amount lately. It's like God just opened up a whole new level of His existence to me and whenever I open His Word, it speaks to me like it never has before. But, while God is showing me this new level, I'm becoming overwhelmed.

I feel the call to mentor a few of my kids this summer and this is just one of those things that really makes me feel like I've jumped in over my head. I really don't feel ready to do this stuff, and because of this, I've been trying to grow rapidly with God; like I'm playing catch up. I've found that this is, by far, the most frustrating part of being a Christ follower. Normally, God doesn't work like that. Changes take place over time, not all at once.

I fully believe Phillipians 1:6. Nothing in me would bring me to this new level, so I know it was God. And if God brought me here, then He has every intention of bringing me to the top of it and maybe even to another level that I can't even comprehend yet. But one thing in particular He's been showing me lately is how to better reach Him. And that is by removing things in my life that separate me from Him. In other words, sin.

When I was 17 I got my very first flat tire. I had no idea what to do in this situation. I didn't have a flat tire, so I just assumed we'd have to buy a new tire. This sucked because we didn't have the money to go out buying tires all willy nilly. But my dad came to my rescue. I moved my truck over to the air pump at the gas station across the street and my dad brought some stuff to plug the hole with. The one really cool thing I remember is that once the hole was filled, he poured water over the tire. If he saw any bubbles then that meant air would get out and there was a weak spot in the tire.

Lately, I've been praying for God to do that to me. Show me where in my life I'm bubbling up so I can see where my weak spots are and get them fixed. I say "get them fixed" because there's nothing in me that could fix this stuff apart from God. And, as I said before, there's nothing in me to want to get rid of my sin. So if I'm wanting to get rid of it, then it's God working in me. And if He started this work, He's going to finish it!

BEST....THING....EVER!!!!

I can't imagine anything else topping this today as my favorite thing.

Please go here and enjoy this beautiful thing!

I think the fact that they're holding hands makes me mourn for them the most.

Been a while...

I've been without internet access for the past two weeks, so I apologize for my absence. Although, I do slightly like feel like I'm apologizing to the air, but I will persevere and blog anyway. I'll put up an official entry soon, but for now, I have to share this with everyone. I'm not sure anyone other than Theresa will enjoy this as much as I did, but let's hope others will as well.

I almost got in trouble at work because I laughed too hard at the Kevin Max stuff.