so much extra

Oh how I so easily forget how much grace we have already been given!

On my morning commute today, I found myself struggling to pray against the incessant flow of complaints that were going through my head. Just as I was praying against the negative thoughts and feeling quite inadequate, I turned a corner and saw the biggest, most vibrant pinkish-orange sun I have ever seen rising over the beautiful green, rolling hills of Oregon. Simultaneously, out of the radio station I unconsciously flipped on someone was saying "His anointing is enough." It was a very needed, sobering moment.

His grace is enough....anything extra is extra grace.

not an even trade

and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise  instead of a spirit of despair.  They will be called oaks of righteousness,  a planting of the LORD  for the display of his splendor.

           Isaiah 61:3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsRA68-DRa0

It matters who God is

"God is the map whereby we locate the setting of our life, that God is the water in which we launch our life raft, that God is the real thing from which and toward which we receive our being and identify ourselves. It follows that the kind of God at work in your life will determine the shape and quality and risk at the center of your existence. It matters who God is."

-Walter Brueggemann

I trust Oswald Chambers

I just came across this excerpt from a devotional someone posted. I have found many of Oswald Chamber's devotionals to be rich in substance and oftentimes quite personally applicable. As I strive to love the people in my life better with greater understanding, this devotional reminded me that loving people better doesn't mean putting our faith or trust in them. Of course it's hard to fully love someone whom you have difficulty trusting but that's where the beauty of God's perfect, gracious love lies. It's such an interesting thought....loving our neighbor better means trusting our neighbor less.....it's not so much that our love needs to be "distrustful" but that trust simply isn't part of that perfect love equation.

"If we love someone, but do not love God, we demand total perfection and righteousness from that person, and when we do not get it we become cruel and vindictive; yet we are demanding of a human being something which he or she cannot possibly give. There is only one Being who can completely satisfy to the absolute depth of the hurting human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ...Our Lord trusted no one, and never placed His faith in people, yet He was never suspicious or bitter. Our Lord’s confidence in God, and in what God’s grace could do for anyone, was so perfect that He never despaired, never giving up hope for any person. If our trust is placed in human beings, we will end up despairing of everyone." Oswald Chambers from John 2:24-25

permanent, earthly ache

"...our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache...At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door." (p. 15)

-The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis 

gratitude for forgiveness of ingratitude

I am thankful for forgiveness when I am not so thankful.

We are commanded to be thankful always, in all circumstances. This is hard because we don't and can't love God perfectly. Our love for Him becomes more perfected when we begin to more deeply realize and offer thankfulness for His perfect love for us. Gratitude is at the heart of the Christian life. 

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/interviews/q-a-with-tim-keller-5

Gratitude is more than a mental exercise, more than a formula of words. We cannot be satisfied to make a mental note of things which God has done for us and then perfunctorily thank Him for favors received.

To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything He has given us — and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is grace, for it brings with us immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder, and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference… Gratitude is therefore the heart of the Christian life.  

-Thomas Merton, one of my favorite desert fathers

Sometimes I just need these reminders that:  ALL of life is grace

Abandoned Devotion

God means us to live a fully orbed life in Christ Jesus, but there are times when that life is attacked from the outside, and we tumble into a way of introspection which we thought had gone. Self-consciousness is the first thing that will upset the completeness of the life in God, and self-consciousness continually produces wrestling. Self-consciousness is not sin; it may be produced by a nervous temperament or by a sudden dumping down into new circumstances. It is never God's will that we should be anything less than absolutely complete in Him. Anything that disturbs rest in Him must be cured at once, and it is not cured by being ignored, but by coming to Jesus Christ. If we come to Him and ask Him to produce Christ-consciousness, He will always do it until we learn to abide in Him.

Never allow the dividing up of your life in Christ to remain without facing it. Beware of leakage, of the dividing up of your life by the influence of friends or of circumstances; beware of anything that is going to split up your oneness with Him and make you see yourself separately. Nothing is so important as to keep right spiritually. The great solution is the simple one -"Come unto Me." The depth of our reality, intellectually, morally and spiritually, is tested by these words. In every degree in which we are not real, we will dispute rather than come.

So thankful for having come across this devotional today. "Come unto Me" is such a great mantra to remember when confusion, frustration, and chaos rob your inner sense of peace. Life is a battle between self-consciousness and "Christ-consciousness" and will forever be until Christ returns. "Come unto Me" reminds me of my need to surrender what consciousness I can give to Him, but it also reminds me that one day I won't have to come to Him for I will already be with Him. The constant battle against this separation of self from God will be no more. I will no longer have to fight for abandoned devotion to Him. My consciousness of self will be completely replaced with consciousness of self as seen through Christ.