A little food for weekend thought--
Hit a slump today. Perhaps it's Mother's Day approaching tomorrow and realizing that my days of mothering our children in our home are growing perilously short...and this makes me so sad. Or perhaps it's missing my own mama all these years and wishing she could be here for one more Mother's Day. Or perhaps it's the knowledge of how many ways I've fallen short as a mama and a wife and wanting so badly to do better, to be better. Or perhaps it's simply living in a fallen world where heaven is not yet...and we are not yet...and that longing deep down in our hearts can morph into discouragement and discontentment if we allow it to fester.
Forgive me, Father, for my sometimes restless, faithless heart that's so prone to fuss and fret. To worry about what the future might hold or wring my hands in regret over past failures. Like today--over times when I should have been seeking to understand rather than to be understood. When I should have been loving extravagantly rather than throwing a self-centered little pity party. Oh, we miss so much, don't we, when we focus upon ourselves rather than fixing upon our Savior and loving, forgiving, and living in His power.
I've always loved the famous response G.K.Chesterton gave to the newspaper that had posed the question: "What's Wrong with the World?" Chesterton responded briefly, but powerfully:
Dear Sirs:
I am.
Sincerely yours,
G.K.Chesterton
Yes, that's pretty much what's wrong with the world...and wrong with my world when I get all out of sorts--I am the problem. My sin. My selfishness. My pride.
And here's what's right with the world--
Jesus is.
The only one who could truly say He was--and is--the great I Am is the solution to our problem and to the world's problem. It is the Gospel, and my oh my, it is such astoundingly good news.
We need to be reminded of that central truth every single day...every single hour. It's funny: we tend to view the Gospel as a one-and-done-deal: the good news of forgiveness for our sins and the gift of salvation. And it is, praise God. But it is so infinitely much more!
The Gospel is for living every single day on this lovely but broken planet. The Gospel tells us we can do nothing apart from the grace of God...but with that grace, we can do all things. We can love the unlovely. We can forgive freely. We can be filled with gratitude for all God has given rather than preoccupied with what we lack. We can jettison our pride and selfishness and live with joyous generosity and unselfishness. We can live this life as Christ meant us to live it--fully, freely, faithfully.
"God did not give us HIs gospel just so we could embrace it and be converted. Actually, He offers it to us every day as a gift that keeps on giving to us everything we need for life and godliness. The wise believer learns this truth early and becomes proficient in extracting available benefits from the gospel each day. We extract these benefits by being absorbed in the gospel, speaking it to ourselves when necessary, and by daring to reckon it true in all we do." (From A Gospel Primer by Milton Vincent)
Maybe no one else needed reminding today...but I sure did. Because whenever I veer away from the wondrous power of the Gospel and the gift of Christ's astounding forgiveness, amazing grace, and extravagant love, well then, I grow cramped. worried, ungrateful, and stingy. Not a pretty picture. Just ask my family.
But when we daily bathe in that glorious grace, then we are swimming in the ocean of His grace, goodness, power, and love for "In Him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28) It's through the power of the Gospel that we are enabled to do all, all, all things through Him who strengthens us. (Phil.4:13)
So today, might we return again and again to the attitude-altering, destiny-changing truth of the Gospel. "Outside of heaven," Vincent reminds us, "the power of God in its highest density is found inside the gospel." And that's where I, where we, need to be every day and every hour.
To God--who has given us the wondrous good news of the Gospel--be all the glory.
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