Even better than a new year,
an annually cleaned slate,
a fresh new season of renewed resolution
and dared-to-drag-back-out dreams…
is this:
That EACH morning, His mercies are new!
EACH moment, He is there for the helping,
and the helping back up
when we inevitably fall and fail.
Most resolutions make it a month, maybe a few.
The more we fail at them, the less resolute we become.
Willpower just isn’t enough.
But His power in us always is.
We just have to remember to ask for it.
Imperfection and disappointment have their way of making themselves into each day, because this side of heaven we are not perfect, we are still in progress. And so is everyone else in this world. And the things of this world are fading.
1 John 2:17 says “This world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.”
What pleases Him?
That we love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. And that we love others as ourselves. Not just a held-in-our hearts love, but a love expressed in out-loud words, acted-out actions.
He knows we won’t be able to do this perfectly.
Loving is simultaneously the simplest and hardest thing in the universe to do, I think.
It’s simple and wonderful to love (both in feelings and in actions) someone in response to how they’ve shown us love. Or- someone new that has not yet disappointed us or shown us their imperfections.
It’s hard to feel love, and nearly impossible on our own to demonstrate love to someone who is not making us feel loved in that particular moment. Or to someone who has disappointed us over and over and over.
But that’s what grace is.
And grace, by definition,
(u•n•d•e•s•e•r•v•e•d favor)
wouldn’t be grace if we deserved it.
It’s seeing God’s grace towards us,
and embracing it with gratitude and faith
that saves us.
Ephesians 2:8- “For by grace (we) have been saved through faith. And this is not (our) own doing; it is the gift of God.”
I would dare to say, that in relationships,
grace is also what saves.
(Have you ever had someone treat you kindly when you KNOW that you didn’t deserve it? Have you ever had someone love you when you were being very unlovely? It’s pretty powerful isn’t it?)
And a faith that- even if they’re not acting like it at the moment- that at their core, the other is good and worthy of love.
But trying to extend grace without God’s help is so hard. Willpower may last for awhile, but always falls short. And trying makes us uptight.
But dying to self-
as painful as that sounds-
actually makes it easier.
Sacrificing our right to be upset,
refusing to rehearse our side of the story in our mind and clutter our hearts with those emotions,
it’s so freeing!
Taking the situations to God and asking Him to encourage us in our spirits,
to fill us freshly with HIS love first,
so we can act from fullness and not from the emptiness that the situation or the other person has made us feel…
and so we can love freely, grace-fully, without expectation to receive a reciprocated fullness from them…
it’s the secret.
To re-receive His grace,
Seeing that He loves us despite all our mistakes and messy feelings- even in these particular moments-
and then go out, healed,
and extend that grace
which has the power to heal relationships.
The grace that loves and leans in FIRST,
not waiting for the other to apologize or act.
The grace that refuses to harden our hearts towards someone, even if it feels like that would protect us.
The grace that stays soft- and when it can’t, when it has done everything in its own power to love and forgive and has reached the very end of self, the grace that loves so much that it reaches BEYOND itself to ask God for more capacity to give.
It’s the most beautifully transforming thing to receive this rare kind of love and grace.
It’s the most impossible in self thing to give it out. But with God, in going to God and simply asking Him to walk us through it – all things are (not easy, but) possible!
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Above any goals this year, I pray that we embrace the grace of God, and that we go to Him each time we need help extending it! 💗
Grace, I really believe, has the power not only to transform us but to change the world. {Or at least our small circles – our marriages, our families, our extended families, our church families, our workplaces – where we decide to extend it.} 🌎
From Full 