This is Grace

I'm listening to Dido right now. The front porch is a good place for contemplating life. This last week has been a little hard for me. Ok, it's been very hard for me. I've been gone from home everyday this week. Life never slows down; have you ever noticed that? At first, it seems to crawl, but really, it's just plodding along at its own pace. Then more things happen, schedules fill up and things occasionally go wrong. You're lost in a rush of deadlines and conflicts. But you never stay hopelessly submerged.


This is Grace.

Life is like the small, unstable line on a heartbeat monitor. Each spasmodic jump records another valley and mountain of life. If we didn't have those mountains and valleys, we wouldn't exist. Not that they sustain life, but they are simply a natural part of it. No one's life is completely downhill nor is it completely uphill.

This is Grace.

Time plods on and you start another descent, somehow never dropping as far as you could. Just when you think that you'll never stop, you lightly touch the bottom of your valley. It's almost imperceptible, like landing softly in a stack of hay, or drifting gently until your feet grasp the sandy bottom of a lake, sending a miniature cloud of sand and dirt swirling into the clear depths. And, like a diver, you look up again towards where the refraction of light plays around the surface of the water, soft and luminous.


This is Grace.

You gaze fixedly up. Your breath has left you and darkness begins to wrap around the corners of your vision. A strong updraft begins to rise, inexplicably. Instinctively, you squint; the warm water caresses your face as you shoot up through the murkiness. The light grows more distinct and the darkness drops quickly below you. All you can do is look up. Finally, you break the surface. Thousands of crystal-clear droplets splinter into the air. Oxygen rushes into your lungs and the sensation tingles through your whole being. You're free.

This is Grace.

Thank you, Lord.

~Curtis~

May I be honest with you?

I was reading the "Define Me" blurb on my Facebook today. It was interesting to read what words people used to describe me:

addict (thank you, Vieve), adorable (?, lol), beautiful spirit, chill, easy-going, encouraging, fun, genuine, godly, honest, humorous, inspiring, optimistic, passionate, talkative (don't know why they came up with that one), trustworthy and upright.

So I know that most of these were light-hearted. But "genuine?", "godly?", "honest?" and "upright?" It got me thinking. This is how people see me, even though I fall down in these very areas every day of my life. Maybe I'm just being my hardest critic? And then I read 1 Corinthians 4:3, 4; "But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me." I wish so much that I could measure up to that. There's days when I've lost more ground than I gained and I intentionally let myself slide. As I was reading that 1 Corinthians passage, I just thought about what that would mean, to live as to have nothing on the proverbial rap sheet.

I don't want to just have a clean conscience, though. Romans 1:8; "First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world." Can you imagine what it would be like to have a faith that is proclaimed of in all the world?? A person like that could easily change the world! I wish so much that I could be upright, Godly and a man of faith. I guess I just want to tell everybody that I'm not. I struggle with being a witness to people in person. I abuse the Grace of the Cross. I'm not honest with my parents at home. I have ulterior motives for otherwise, self-less looking things I do and say. I get so sick of it!

I used to think it was so curious when one of my friends signed their blog with "Your Fellow Sinner." I think as Christians, we are so willing to identify with the justification we've received and not willing enough to identify with the depths we came from and still return to. If you look at the Patriarchs of the Old Testament, you'll see something more than just great men of faith. You'll see humans, people who tried to do it their way. People who screwed up all the time. But you'll also see people who fell down on their faces before the presence of God and men who cried, "I am not worthy!" or "I am a dead man!" I think we need to return to that place. This is the place where we were when we came to the foot of the Cross and cried, "I am a sinner! I can't do this on my own, so I need YOU to save me!" True faith is taking God at His word and acting upon it. True repentance is not only turning away from sin, but turning to God to completely take over everything. True humility is always remembering the Cross, where we fell, where He picked us up and who He is. It's true, we are saved by Grace. We are justified by the blood of Christ. But we are all also just sinners saved by Grace.

Your Fellow Sinner, Saved By Grace,
~Curtis~