Living Life with Grace

 

*Note: This is another blog post that I wrote a while ago, but never posted. Yet I have found it encouraging in this particular season of my life, so I think now is a good time to share it.

 

 

Life can be quite the mystery sometimes. Walking in grace, also holds mysteries.

Living in grace means being committed to trusting Christ in all of life circumstances, but sometimes life circumstances just don’t make sense. And sometimes life circumstances throw pain right in the face; cold water in the middle of winter.

But in the end we, you and me, still cling to grace and still trust that our heavenly father knows it all and cares.

We must look crazy to the world. To trust and to abide in his perfect peace even though life really isn’t so simple, so peaceful sometimes and life really hurts sometimes and life is just plain confusing or messy and mysterious.

It seems crazy to be at peace in it all. It seems crazy, but he’s got it all and he knows it all and he really is working it all out and for mine and your good and for his glory and so we both can smile and push on and we can rest in some mysterious peace.

And no, that peace doesn’t mean we don’t hurt or we don’t cry sometimes, but it means we know he’ll be there through it all even during the darkest moments of it all and even as the tears pour down our face we say without a doubt, he’ll come through yet again because sorrow may last for the night, but joy is promised to come in the morning.

And that night may be the longest night you’ve ever had, but oh how much greater the joy will be when it does come at last in the dawn of that beautiful morning.

This mysterious peace, it means we get up the next day even though it may still be night in our hearts; we get up willing to love and smile at the human race even though deep inside there is pain that still exists.

Peace doesn’t mean no pain, but peace gives a strength that the world cannot have, cannot comprehend.

We cannot curse this day for this is the day the Lord has made and we know it in our heads. Job’s wife told him to curse life because it seemed a life cursable, but Job new his life was in the hands of God and created by God and through all his pain there was a tenacious grace and hope that he still clung to.

So we too, cling to this grace through the stormy waves; we know he’s there through it all. And yeah, we don’t always trust so easily. We struggle and fight and hurt.

We want to tell God we know what’s best, but in the end we give it to him and admit he is right, for is he not the one who created and formed our very being and does he not know the very depths of our heart? Did he not create the mountains and seas and does he not hold the ocean in the palm of his hands and did he not name every star in the night sky and know the number of them all? And does he not clothe the lilies of the field and how much more will he clothe you and me?

Hoping yet not seeing is hard, but it would be harder to not hope at all.

To have no hope is to live outside of grace and I would rather abide in grace and hope in him than live a thousand lives and never have this hope at all.

And my friend, if you and I should cease to hurt, if life should cease to cause us pain than wouldn’t we be the heartless ones, ones with a cold dead heart, unwilling to feel pain, hard as stone? Pain is a part of being human and to block out pain is to kill your own heart.

So rather, in this momentary pain, may Christ be our gain. Don’t kill your own heart, dear friend, but rather let this pain push you and I into the loving arms of Christ.

His grip of love can never let us down, can never disappoint, and cannot fail any one of his children who are precious to his heart. Loved we are with an unspeakable love.

Oh life, and its mysteries! We cry because we cannot understand, but even in those tears, even in those valleys, lift your eyes to the light. It’s there even though it may be a candle flickering in the night.

And even when life hurts most, dear friend, don’t forget that you too are a light flickering in the night and we are called to shine even in this momentary pain. And this light, this grace inside, will give us strength to smile and laugh and love like Christ and maybe, just maybe, that smile can help heal another’s hurting heart.