Grumbling or Questioning

"Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain." (Phil. 2:14-16)

There is so much in these verses, but for today, let me just linger on Phil.2:14--"Do ALL things without grumbling or questioning." Brother, I have a long way to go on that one. I'm betting that if I were some Greek scholar, I would be able to give the definition of "all" in the original Greek. And I'm also betting it would be... ALL. As in, don't grumble or question anything, nada, nothing, not even the weather. Not even when the star point guard for your beloved tar heels basketball team is injured and unable to play in the NCAA tournament. Not even when someone else eats the rest of the ice cream cake. Not even when life breaks your heart or changes your plans or steals your dreams. Not in the hardest, most challenging of sorrows nor in the smallest, most shallow of disappointments.

Don't we all default to grumbling? It's too warm or too cold. The music is too loud or too slow or too something or other. Our home is too old or our yard is too full of weeds or our car is too unreliable. Our weight is too heavy or our eyes are too weak. Or we grumble about our insufficiencies, our "not quite enough's"--not enough gratitude from our loved ones. Not enough time. Not enough money. Not enough sunshine. Not enough rain. Not enough time or energy or love.

Forgive us, sovereign Lord! All things, all circumstances--good, bad, challenging, exhilarating, exhausting, encouraging--all come from Your hand, filtered through Your mysterious but always ultimately good plans and ways, and prompted and permitted only through Your love. Calvary love. We simply cannot always understand. Why the death of a child? Why tragic accidents? Why handicaps--physical, mental, emotional? Why war and pain and famine and turmoil?

We will never know the why's this side of heaven.

But we know the Who... and that is enough.

I find the more I focus on the Who, by fixing my eyes upon the Savior, then the "why's" don't seem so important anymore. And I am able to praise the One who came and lived and bled and died and rose again and who lives that we might truly live. Live the abundant, joyful, non- grumbling life! When I'm grumbling and questioning, my focus is upon big me and my big circumstances. But when I refuse to grumble and instead choose gratitude, my focus is upon my big, huge sovereign God and His glorious grace. And the result is trusting joy and a life in which we "shine as lights in the world." (Phil.2:15) If you want to stand out, try choosing gratitude rather than grumbling; try trusting rather than questioning, and, believe me, in this jaded, dark world, your light will shine!

So today, tonight, tomorrow, even when things don't go according to our plan, might we choose thanking and trusting rather than grumbling and questioning. God's in complete control, but He's giving you the choice as to your response. "Do all things without grumbling or questioning." What are you excluding from "all things?!" He who has given all, forgiven all, and done all for us, deserves our "all." And to our Almighty, Sovereign God be ALL the glory.

Grace again... and again!

Might we never grow weary of the subject of grace! Isn't it funny how the Lord will sometimes seem to repeat the same message to you in a number of different ways and places? I guess that's just another example of His grace--He knows how frail and forgetful we all are, so He graciously, gently teaches and encourages us again and again! Since my brain has grown so forgetful that I often confuse my youngest child's name with the dog's (but hey, they are both biblical names--one New Testament and the other Old!), I'm mighty thankful for the reminders... and for His never-ending grace. His mercies are new every morning--especially when you can't remember anything from the day before.

The day after I wrote the previous blog on grace and glory, I read these words by William Gurnall, a 17th century English pastor: "If the provisions were left in our own hands, we would soon be bankrupt merchants. God knows we are weak, like cracked pitchers--if filled to the brim and set aside, the contents would soon leak out. So He puts us under a flowing fountain of His strength and constantly refills us... The Christian ought to rely on divine strength because this plan results in the greatest advancement of God's own glory (Ephesians 1:4, 12). If God had given you a lifetime supply of His grace to begin with and left you to handle your own account, you would have thought Him generous indeed. But He is magnified even more by the open account He sets up in your name. Now you must acknowledge not only that your strength comes from God in the first place, but that you are continually in debt for every withdrawal of strength you make throughout your Christian course."

And all God's people said "Amen!" We take so many daily graces for granted--the wonder of a child, the constancy of a spouse, the tail thumping love of a dog, the symphonic cacophony of birds in the early morning, the warmth of the sun, the cleansing of the rain, the soft leather of an old, beloved Bible, the laughter of a dear friend, the joy of answered prayer, the bloom of a dogwood tree. Forgive me Lord for demanding so much and thanking so little.

And then there is His supernatural provision of grace--the manna that is always always always enough, always just what is needed when it is needed--His power, His forgiveness, His love, His strength, His peace... Himself given to us, at all times and in all places.

You know, it is true: if He just laid that lifetime supply on us all at once, we would be stunned and overwhelmed at such extravagance, such utterly undeserved abundance. We would recognize our extraordinary wealth and blessing bestowed by our bank account of grace. But I wonder whether we might be tempted to worry, "When will it run out? How can I preserve and conserve it? What if there is not enough? Perhaps I need to hoard it and refuse to share it, just in case?"

So our all-wise Father gives us our supernatural abundance in gift-wrapped packages of grace on a daily, hourly, moment by moment basis. As Gurnall wrote, "He is magnified even more by the open account He sets up in your name." We need never worry His grace will be insufficient or inadequate. His grace flows freely and fully for our every need--right when we need it. All we must do is ask. Draw upon that never emptying account of grace by calling upon our Father in our emptiness and inadequacy and insecurity and fear and failings.

No wonder Paul could write with such conviction and joy: "...I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." (Phil.4:11-13) Yes, Paul "learned" contentment, because he had learned that God's grace is always and ever sufficient for his every need. Paul could do anything and everything through the grace of the risen Savior.

And so can we. Same Savior. Same grace. Same strength. Same limitless open account of ever flowing grace to meet our every need. We can learn contentment, as we, too, hand Him our exhaustion or discouragement or fear or failure or confusion and watch His grace meet yet another need or cover another seemingly impossible dilemma or strengthen us to face another struggle. We learn of the sufficiency and greatness of His grace and strength for our every need. And we discover joy and peace and contentment even in the midst of our storms.

We can do all things through Him who strengthens us... for the fountain still flows and flows and flows, and the grace pours down and spills over all our needs and fears and hopes. And then, the glory can only go to the Source of that continuously flowing grace, that endless open account written in your name, in His blood. Might we each day, each hour, each moment say, "Help me, Lord" and then "Thank You, Father." To God, our Gracious Infinite Provider and Strength, be the glory.

The God of Grace and Glory

It has been a mighty busy week, or two weeks, actually. Nothing super extraordinary or anything, just lots of meetings, children's school projects, decisions on school courses for next year, volunteer activities, high school sporting events, planning for a future Bible study, and, of course, the usual endless loads of laundry, cleaning, cooking, carpooling, and on and on. By this afternoon, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and discouraged. Next year I am helping with a women's Bible study at our church, and I thought, "How on earth am I going to do that, too? I'm already on overload, failing to get done all I need to get done and feeling like I'm doing everything poorly." You know, mama's guilt and inadequacy and all that.

A dear friend texted me that she had dropped something off in my mailbox, and as I zoomed out the door on the way to drop something off at school for one of my children (and before carpools for several other children!), I remembered to grab it. I read a little note attached to it that simply said, "Read March 19." And here is what I read: "The Lord will give grace and glory." Psalm 84:11. Now I realize that may not mean much to you, but if you are involved in our church women's Bible study, like me, you might have gasped. For you see, we labored over what to call our study. We went through weeks and weeks of various names, never seeming to come up with what we felt was God's choice.

And then a week or two ago, God gave us the name: Morning Glory (for our day class) and Evening Grace (for our night class). We would refer to them together as the Grace & Glory classes--because everything, absolutely everything we do, from dawn to dusk, is all by His grace, and all for His glory. The older I get, the more I realize this--I wouldn't be able to tie my shoes properly, much less love my husband and children, do all that He's called me to do, encourage and love my friends, apart from His amazing, supernatural, glorious grace.

The thing is, I tend to forget this. I tend to get busy busy busy trying to do all I have to do, accomplishing, completing, competing, succeeding (and failing), and I forget about beseeching Him for His grace. Do that long enough, and you get exhaustion or joylessness or burn out or discouragement or even despair. And you sure as shooting don't get blessing and contentment and peace!

As I read the words of the little devotional my dear friend, Holly, had dropped off, I realized they echoed what I had just been thinking about the other day. Charles Spurgeon wrote that "Grace is what we need just now, and it is to be had freely. What can be freer than a gift? Today we shall receive sustaining, strengthening, sanctifying, satisfying grace. He has given us daily grace until now, and as for the future, that grace is still sufficient. If we have but little grace, the fault must lie in ourselves; for the Lord is not straitened, neither is He slow to bestow it in abundance. We may ask for as much as we will and never fear refusal. He giveth liberally and upbraideth not."

I immediately thought of the story I had read a few days ago about the poor widow who came to the prophet Elisha, desperate for help. She was unable to pay her bills, and the creditor had come to take her two children to be his slaves. When Elisha asked her, "Tell me: what do you have in the house?," she responded that she had "nothing in the house except a jar of oil." (2 Kings 4:2) Elisha tells her to go borrow as many vessels as she possibly can from all her neighbors. "Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all the vessels" and keep pouring one after another. (2 Kings4:4)

And that is exactly what she did. She gathered the vessels and began pouring and pouring and pouring the oil into jar after jar after jar. I would have loved to have seen that varied and sundry assortment of vessels--surely there were jugs and big jars and small containers and bowls and fancy pots and rude, broken vessels of all shapes and sizes. But as soon as she had filled the very last container, "the oil stopped flowing." (v.6) She then went and sold the oil and paid her debts.

I couldn't help pondering: I wonder if she wished she had gotten a few more vessels? I bet she figured she surely could have scrounged up more containers of some kind or another, and if she had, the oil would have kept flowing and flowing and flowing. The only reason the oil ran dry was because of her failure to keep offering up more empty vessels.

Isn't that a bit like grace? God offers the free, glorious, life-giving gift of His grace to all of us. His grace never runs out, never runs dry, never proves even slightly inadequate to any possible need. As long as we hold out our hands and ask, He keeps pouring it upon us in beautiful abundance, to meet our every need. But I need to keep offering, keep holding out my empty, needy hands to the One who is all-sufficient. Keep asking. Keep seeking. Keep handing Him my empty vessels... and watch them be filled by the Savior.

"Lord, here is my empty jar of energy"--and He gives grace. "Father, here's my empty container of parenting. I need help, I need wisdom, I need love"--and His grace overflows my weaknesses and vacant spaces. "Jesus, here's my empty cup of clutter and disorganization and unfinished tasks"... and the grace flows and fills. "Savior, here's my empty jug of patience or peace or forgiveness or kindness. I have none; I'm just fresh out." And the grace just seems to fill and flow and overflow. "Lord, here's my completely empty bowl of love--for those You've given me and even for You"--and somehow, the God of all mercy and grace and glory, forgives and renews and restores and refills to overflowing every sinful vacancy, every lack, every failed intention with Himself and His endless, glorious grace.

Today, might we praise the Lord of infinite provision who promises to give grace and glory to His empty, needy children. We are weak... but He is strong, so strong. So infinitely, graciously, gloriously strong.

And His grace is flowing and flowing and flowing. Will you hand Him your empty jars and jugs, whatever the size, whatever the shape, whatever the need?... and keep handing them to Him who ever flows and fills, all by His grace and all for His glory. He will never ever fail to fill with His grace. All glory be to our Great God of all Grace.

Where is our focus?

A little more on what I wrote about yesterday--this following hard after our Savior--as I find it to be one of the greatest of challenges in our frenetic world saturated with diversions and pleasures. Yet it also provides the richest of rewards, for the closer we follow Him, the more intimately we know Him, the more deeply we love Him, the more gratefully we worship Him, and the more joyfully we serve Him.

But, boy, it is just so easy to get off track and start running down all manner of "rabbit trails" rather than following THE trail, The Way. The Way may be narrower and harder, but it is The Way of abundant, joyful, peaceful, contented, eternal Life--with a capital "L!" Why do we so often settle for all those pale, unsatisfying, ultimately destructive substitutes rather than the real thing, the Real Way?

Well, again, I think it goes back to truly seeing, truly gazing upon the Savior daily so that we increasingly come to know and love Him, and, therefore, long to obey and serve Him. It just can't be a matter of gritting my teeth, and determinedly declaring, "I WILL obey. I WILL be more loving and unselfish. I WILL stop wasting time or money or effort on that which is worldly and shallow and self-seeking." You know why? Because no matter how hard I try, I always seem to default back to selfish, prideful, petty, ungrateful me. 'Cause wherever I turn, there I am, for Pete's sake! It's the old sin nature that rears it's hideous head... and it horrifies me every time when I see how truly sinful I am.

And then I see how glorious my Savior truly is. And how amazing grace truly is. And how it is not 80% Him and 20% me. It is not even 99% Him and 1% me. It is simply 100% Him and Him alone. His blood. His love. His mercy. His grace. His forgiveness. His salvation. "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing: it is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast." (Eph. 2:8-9) The good news, it is 0% us, and, well, yahoo, I can do 0%! But my job is to be fixing upon and following hard after the One who is 100%.

So in order to follow hard, and ultimately to obey and serve and love in the ways in which He has called us, we need to know Him and love Him better and more intimately. William Gurnell wrote that "He who has only a nodding acquaintance with the king may easily be persuaded to change his allegiance, or will at least try to remain neutral in the face of reason. Some professing Christians have only a passing acquaintance with the Gospel. They can hardly give an account of what they hope for, or whom they hope in. And if they have some principles they take kindly to, they are so unsettled that every wind blows them away, like loose tiles from a housetop." He goes on to declare that "Head knowledge of the things of Christ is not enough; this following Christ is primarily a matter of the heart. If your heart is not fixed in its purpose, your principles, as good as they may be, will hang loose and be of no more use in the heat of battle than an ill-strung bow. Half-hearted resolve will not venture much nor far for Christ."

How well do we know the King? Is He an acquaintance or the dearest and choicest Friend? I have a lot of acquaintances that I see and wave to and shoot "hey!" but in order to sustain and strengthen my dearest of friendships requires sacrifice, time, dedication, and communication. Upon what are we spending most of our time, our money, our efforts, our thoughts? That will determine our focus and our ultimate direction.

What is keeping you, keeping me, from being whole-heartedly devoted to Christ? Upon what is your heart fixed? The location of our focus will determine the destination of our actions. If my heart is fixed upon Christ, I cannot help but be transformed increasingly into His likeness as I walk with Him and head down His Way. But if my heart is fractured into a million busy, worldly pieces, sometimes glancing at Christ but more often than not busily gazing at activities and things and success and accomplishments, then I'll inevitably lose my way... and His Way. As a result, I'll forfeit all the joy and peace and strength and love and grace He has for me in and on His Way, The Way.

O Lord, keep us fixed upon You, following hard and close, no matter how long and tough the battle. Help us to see You. Give us a fresh vision of Your glory. Keep us in Your Word and reveal Yourself to us, we humbly ask. Keep our hearts fixed and focused and faithful to You and You alone. And to You, our One and Only Savior, our beautiful, gracious, worthy Redeemer, be the glory.

Fixing upon and Following hard

"When asked, 'How can we learn not to be easily offended?' a Desert Father said:

'Consider how dogs hunt rabbits. One dog spots the rabbit and runs after it, giving chase. When the other dogs in the pack see that one dog race down that path, they take off after him, until they become winded and quit, never having seen the rabbit. So they turn back. That one dog, however, will pursue his quarry until he catches it. He ignores briers, rocks, injury, and weariness. He takes no notice that he is alone. He will not rest until he has caught that rabbit. it is the same with those who seek Christ, training their eyes on the cross. They ignore what upsets or injures them. Their eyes are fixed on reaching God's love.'" (From the "Sayings of the Father and Mothers"--Monks and nuns who lived in the desert in the 3rd century)

That is how we follow hard after Christ--ignoring insults or discomfort or personal whims or distractions that tend to detour us away from the path of the upward call of God. How often we can be like that half-hearted herd of dogs who run for a bit but then lose interest or focus or strength. If we have not had a vision of His glory, if we are not cultivating that intimate, life-sustaining personal relationship with the Lord Jesus, then we are much more prone to wander off or wearily give up or just weaken a bit here or there till we are far afield from where we should be. If we have seen Him, truly seen Him that, each day, then we will keep following, despite the hardships or disappointments or unexpected difficulties that any day can bring. But we have to be like that first dog that actually saw the rabbit, for without a vision of our prize, our goal, our Savior and His inestimable beauty and glory and goodness, we will falter and faint.

G. Campbell Morgan put it this way: "The supreme need in every hour of difficulty and distress is for a fresh vision of God. Seeing Him, all else takes on proper perspective and proportion." Isn't that so true? It really comes down to upon what or Whom am I fixed? Am I fixed upon Christ? Or am I fixed upon my problems, my circumstances, my limitations, my selfish desires, my perceived mistreatment by others, my things? The world shouts at us: "Look here! Here is happiness! Here is true contentment and fulfillment! If you will only buy this! or If you will just change... and you fill in the blank: change your spouse, change your house, change your car, change your job. or If you will only have better children or better clothes or better body or better skills. or If you will only drink this or consume this or eat this. Then, finally, deservedly, you will be truly happy and fulfilled!"

It is a lie. And how often we believe it. How often I believe it. Forgive me, Lord. For in You, and in You only, is fullness of joy. You are the source of all that I love. You are the Giver of all good and glorious gifts--from my husband to my children to my siblings to my friends to my health to my home to my sweet old Moses to this colorful, magnificent world in which I live and move and love and laugh. But I need to focus upon You, gaze upon You in Your Word and in prayer so that all the other things fall into the proper perspective. I need to follow hard, follow with determination and joy, because I have had a vision of Your glory.

Paul declared in Philippians 3:10-14 "that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

So today, keep pressing on! Keep forgetting what is past and straining towards what's ahead... because you have a clear vision of the Perfect Prize, our Savior Jesus. Don't be like that half-hearted pack of dogs that gives in or gives up, because they have not seen the prize. See Him today. Seek Him today. He is waiting right now in His Word. And He is glorious. To God be the glory.

More gifts!

So many gifts, so many reasons for joyous gratitude in my mundane, totally ordinary, but yet God-ordered good, good days. Where do I begin? Maybe with the science fair the other night, perhaps? After all the toil, sweat, and tears of the infamous science experiment, we finally went in on tuesday night to enjoy the fruit of all the children's labors. After all my fretting and fussing, after all our failing and faltering..

It was wonderful! Seriously.

Though a pretty crummy photographer, I couldn't help but capture every child's science project on film. How I wish I could figure out how to put pictures on this blog! But just imagine it: there is each child, standing proudly in front of their masterpiece, smiling broadly in front of moldy orange slices or embalmed hot dogs (thank goodness we weren't having hot dogs for dinner later) or basketball graphs or popcorn in various stages of preparation, or, in the case of my son, toilet paper floating in glass jars, or grass growing in plastic pots or fishing poles and on and on.

There is just nothing like seeing joy on display. Joy in the finishing of some hard task. Joy in sharing with others. Joy in being a 4th grader surrounded by parents and siblings and friends and dear teachers who love you beyond all reason. Joy in the gift of living and breathing and being fully present in that moment.

Somehow, it felt like one of those holy moments that break into our everyday, regular routine. Holiness at the science fair, how about that?! You know, I think God gives those holy moments to us all the time, continuously in fact, but we just don't have eyes to see. We are too busy, too preoccupied, too self-absorbed, too focused on the peripheral or the urgent to see His gifts. But in that moment, God broke through my hard shell, and I couldn't help but be overwhelmed with the joy of it all. To be there, to be able to ooh and aah and encourage each child and witness all those spreading grins. To realize in that moment, God had lavished upon each of so many gifts. Gifts of our children, our lives, our senses, our teachers, our friends, our laughter, our gratitude.

And to think I had fretted and fussed about all this science experiment stuff! Shame on me! And so I'm reminded of another gift--grace. His grace, so utterly undeserved, just so amazing. As I walked around the room that evening, gazing at all those science projects, I wanted to shout: "Gift! And another gift! And another gift! And another gift!" Gift upon gift upon gift, one right after the other, one child, one smile at a time. God's unique, priceless children fully on display for the world to see how extravagantly good, how perfectly loving, how astoundingly creative is our Great and Glorious God.

All those gifts in one evening--and that doesn't even include the pale pink tulip tree bursting with blooms that greeted us outside the hall as we went into the school that night! Gift. Or the taste of sweet strawberries and crunchy toast and gooey chocolate cake for hungry mouths later that night. To be hungry and to be fed and to savor--gifts... especially the chocolate, of course!

Or talking on the phone with my daughter in another town--hearing the sound of her voice and cherishing her love and laughter and life. Gift! Or watching basketball games with my family and cheering--or despairing--and discussing this or that. Gift. Walking with my husband and our boys and watching them play golf on a windy, sun-drenched March day. Gift. Listening to music, singing along or just feeling the peace or the passion or the joy behind the notes and words that speak in ways that go far deeper than language. Gift. Or seeing extraordinary answers to prayer for our women's Bible study, and simply sitting back amazed and awed, and utterly humbled, at what our Almighty Sovereign Savior loves to do for His children--His often doubting, faithless, faltering children. We just count it all grace and say "Thank You, Lord for Your gifts upon gifts."

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice!" (Phil.4:4) How can we not rejoice--in who He is and what He has done and in His ordinary--yet extraordinary--gifts upon gifts upon gifts? Elisha prayed for his servant when the hills were surrounded by God's glorious flaming armies, "O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see." (2 Kings 6:17) We, too, pray, "Lord, open our eyes that we might see all Your manifold gifts, showered upon us daily. Give us eyes to see and then to rejoice in You and in Your gifts." Rejoice not in possessions, but in people. Not in our stuff but in our Savior. Not in success but in sanctification. O Lord, open our eyes that we might see and rejoice in You and Your gifts and Your glory and grace!

"To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen." (Phil. 4:20)

I don't got it!

PRAISE GOD--we just handed in the science experiment (I should add--"our" science experiment)! Praise God from whom all blessings flow! Sorry to harp on this again (after last night's blogging rant) but I just had to give God glory since it almost feels like a tiny miracle! Whew.

But I have to add more one funny thing about this whole adventure in learning (that's framing in a much better way than my late night characterization of "infernal blasted science experiment!). We had finally finished all the writing and typing of hypothesis and results and conclusions, etc., and now it came down to one last herculean task: making the graph. Now, keep in mind I have the technological ability of an ant, though that might even be disparaging to the ant. So I had no earthly idea how to do a graph on "Excel" (whatever that is--I don't even think I spelled it correctly). Graphs on a computer sounded like neurosurgery to me, so imagine my relief that Peter totally, absolutely knew how to do it. O, yes, he had assured me repeatedly over the past week, "I know exactly how to do it, Mom. I know how to make the graph." And I needed that reassurance constantly, as I felt increasingly uneasy about the prospect of such a foreign and totally out-of-my-comfort-zone task. But my 4th grader had it, and life was good.

So, late yesterday afternoon, the time had come to make the dreaded graph. Peter confidently stepped up to the computer, opened the Excel program (I couldn't even do that), and then looked up at me. "Okay, what do I enter, Mom?" Excuse me? I'm sure I misunderstood, but it sounded like Peter was asking totally clueless moi what to do. Staying moderately calm, I replied, "What do you mean, what do you enter? Just enter the stuff you planned on entering in whatever way you planned on entering it." My voice started rising just the teensiest bit. Peter started hitting some rather random looking keys, stared at the empty graph on the computer, and finally admitted, "I don't know what to do."

O MY STARS! Call the FBI. Call someone at MIT. Call the engineering department at NC State. Call one of my son's friends who either know how to do this or have an intelligent, organized Mama who knows how to do this and who probably made sure this project was finished a week and a half ago.

Or, maybe call his big sister. Who, bless her soul, since she was incredibly busy working on a big paper, came downstairs and easily and quickly showed us what to do. Okay, that's not true. She did the whole thing while Peter and I watched in utter amazement and joyous relief. It took her less than 5 minutes. It would have taken us till the year 2025. Maybe 2050. Maybe never.

As I thought about all of this, I couldn't help but see how my precious son reflected his sinful, often wayward mama. O yes, I absolutely know what to do. I've got it. I've totally got it..... until disaster strikes. Reality sets in. Exhaustion and discouragement follow. And we realize, I "don't got it" after all. In fact, I've blown it again. I've gone my own prideful way, so certain I know what is best and that my plan is certainly better than anything God might have in store for me. "No, Lord," we essentially declare, "I've got this. I don't need Your help or Your guidance or Your plan. I'm in control and I've got it."

And then we fall and falter and fail and come humbly before Him and admit, "Once again, Father, I don't 'got it.' Would You forgive me? Would You show me? Would You guide me and enable me?" And the remarkable, unbelievable thing is--He does. He always does. It's called GRACE, and it is glorious.

But next time, Lord, help us to remember to seek You first and foremost. O Lord, I'm such an impossibly slow learner (just ask my kids or my computer), but help me to turn to You and seek Your will and Your way first and foremost rather than heading off on my own prideful path. Help us, Lord, to pray the prayer You never refuse: "We don't know what to do, but our eyes are on You." (2 Chronicles 20:12) You Lead, Lord; we'll follow. And to our Leading, Loving Lord who's grace and mercy flow so freely, be all the glory.