The substance of things hoped for

This past weekend, our pastor continued a series on grace.  His focus this particular weekend was on how faith is the key to grace.  I must confess the message hit me hard in several areas of my life and my walk right now as a Christ follower.  Life has been - for lack of a more friendly term - a booger the last few months and I feel as though I've been dragged along behind.  I have not been consistent in my time with God nor my eating, nor my finances, nor my parenting.....etc.  The enemy has enjoyed heaping guilt upon my head..."you only spent 10 minutes in the word today?  Really? What's wrong with you?" or "You are screwing up your kids so bad.  Why can't you be like 'that' parent?"  or "Did you really just eat that? Have you learned nothing?"  Often times it was his accusing voice I heard. Other times, sadly, it was my own.  I am usually pretty quick to show grace to others, but not always myself.  Then I get bogged down in the yuck.  I ask God to show me where He is in those times because my eyes are just full of....well...myself.

As I listened to Pastor's sermon Sunday morning, I felt God gently remind me of all the ways He had shown grace through the "crazy".  I found myself enveloped in gratefulness for:

1.  Health - while each member of the family experienced a little of the various viruses going around this winter and my hubby and I got the brunt of it, no one ended up in the hospital.  No one needed a specialist, no one died or was in danger of it.  I cannot say the same for others in my circle of friends/family.

2.  Finances - With two teenagers and one pre-teen, someone is always in need of money for one thing or another.  We get letters/emails/fb posts from the various schools asking for this, asking for that, then the cars need gas, need to be inspected, need to be fixed, need to be fixed again, we are all still eating EVERY DAY for heaven sake and don't get me started on kids outgrowing their clothes (so grateful for boys who love to wear shorts all year round!) or special clothes needed for this program that prom etc. etc.,...usually RIGHT AFTER we have paid the bills and there's nothing left.  It's enough to make me rip my hair out by it's home-dyed roots.....

BUT THEN...I remember that we have 3 beautiful children when many of our friends have had a life long struggle with infertility.  We have 2 functioning (mostly) vehicles when 2/3 of the world have no vehicle at all. We have never missed a meal or even had to wonder where the food would come from in the last few months.  That alone makes us richer than most of the planet. We have never had to worry about whether or not we will have to rebuild our lives after a natural disaster.

Love these ladies

3.  Spiritually - I just recently returned from a missions trip where I met some beautiful women who long to know more about Jesus and how to live for Him.  I got the privilege of teaching them what the bible says about our identity in Him and about the truth of who God says we are.  I got to learn from my fellow teammates as they taught the women how to get the most out of scripture and how to not get stuck in our stuff.  I got to witness women talk to each other and laugh when they only understood a few words in the others' language.  I got to witness the beauty of the body of Christ in all sizes, shapes and colors.

How often God speaks TO me even when He is speaking THROUGH me.  It's sort of the spiritual equivalent of giving one of your children a spanking while receiving one yourself.  Yowza.

So much more I could share, but the bottom line for me was this....Through all the "crazy" God has continued to be faithful to love, lead and encourage me.  He has shown great grace when I have failed and great encouragement to rise from the ashes and move forward.  He has, as David said in the Psalms, "forgiven the guilt of my sin."  He has reminded me that faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things unseen (thanks Pastor Woody and Hebrews 11:1).  I don't have trouble having faith that God will keep His future promises.  Where I miss the mark so often is when I stop believing that EVEN NOW, God is working on my behalf to move me toward the fulfillment of those promises and even when I cannot see His hand, I need to still trust His heart for me.

When we exercise faith we experience grace

To end his message on Sunday, Pastor asked us to come forward and talk to God about the things we were having trouble having faith for. He had this huge key laying on the stage and asked us to just come up and lay a hand on it - not because there was anything magical or spiritual about the key itself - but just as a visual reminder to us that we were handing those things over to God...and laying down the areas where we wanted to see change and trusting God to move even when we cannot see it.

So where are those areas for you?  Are you trying to do it all yourself and feeling dragged along by your own determination?  Are you feeling forgotten because you cannot see the cogs of the wheel turning so you doubt you're moving forward?  What do you hope for?  What are you hoping for that you don't even dare to express out of fear.  The truth is we may not get to see the end of the road before we pass into the next life.  We may not get to receive all the promises this side of Heaven.  But if we do not lose our confidence, we will receive  great rewards along the way (Hebrews 10:35-36).  That sounds much better to me than trying to figure it all out myself and struggling to just put one foot in front of the other.

Here's a link to the sermon I mentioned if you're interested in checking it out;-)  Might be just what you need today.

blue-ridge.org/messages/romans-4-5