ONE THOUSAND GIFTS (Voskamp) Part 2

Part 2: Based on Devotions 11-20 from ONE THOUSAND GIFTS: A Devotional

Finding Everyday Graces  Ann Voskamp (Zondervan, 2012)

FRIDAY, September 26  Singing Grace

Ephesians 5:20 MSG

Sing songs from your heart to Christ. Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master, Jesus Christ.

You can only hear your life sing when you are still. (AV)

            How does life sing?  It sings constantly in the voices of birds, frogs, crickets, and the rush of the wind, the patter of raindrops.  It sings in the conversations of friends, even the sounds of traffic that can remind us that we live in a land of plenty. 

            But do we hear it?  When we walk through a forest, the birds quiet, the frogs cease their croaking.  Only when we pause in silence, do we begin to hear the sounds of God around us.  When we hush, we hear.

            But we also can sing.  May our songs of praise pour forth from our lips like an ever-flowing fountain.  May we sing out and share the moments we find God-gifts revealed.  Over and over again.  

SATURDAY, September 27 Ugly Grace

Colossians 1: 19-20 MSG

So spacious is he [Christ], so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death…

God longs to transfigure all, no matter how long it takes.

Somewhere, underneath the grime of this broken world, everything has the radiant fingerprints of God on it.

Seeing the world with Jesus’ eyes, we have the astonishing opportunity to daily love the unlovely into loveliness. (AV)

If we look closely, we can find beauty in everything.  If we get close to that which is tiresome, challenging, or worrisome, we can find the face of God.  God sticks close to us, seeking to transfigure.  How well do we seek the daily communion with God that can and will change us? 

            My challenge today is to find the God-gift in something that seems marred and ugly at first impression.  Transfigure it in God and through God. 

SUNDAY, September 28   Graffiti Grace

Isaiah 43:1 GNT

“Do not be afraid—I will save you.
    I have called you by name—you are mine.

Graffiti can be grace. What seems a defacement can be a glimpse of His face. All the writing on the wall could be love notes.

Grace isn’t a mere Pollyana feeling.  It’s a force. A powerful force. …Grace is the power of God pulsating with this passionate love of God; this jolting, blazing, dangerous love that pierces all of humanities pitch-black.  (AV)

            Graffiti.  We see it most often on the sides of walls, the box cars rolling down the train tracks.  Usually it disfigures and makes us angry or disappointed.  But there is ART in graffiti and perhaps, just perhaps, there is a glimpse of God.  When we see that which initially appears wrong, may we take a step back and look again.  May we seek to see the gift of God in it.  A child-mess in the kitchen? Fingerprints on the walls?  Thank God for the child, for the imagination, for the joyful life the child leads.  Thank God for the blessing in the mess of our world. 
            I'm including today a scribble I did of graffiti on the Israeli Border Wall.  The Wall is a reminder to all Palestinians of oppression and separation.  But hidden within, there are beautiful pictures of hope, peace, and acceptance. My wall is filled with graffiti prayers.  Graffiti grace. Love notes.  

MONDAY, September 29  Coded Grace

Philippians 4:11-12  GNT

I have learned to be satisfied with what I have.  I know what it is to be in need and what it is to have more than enough. I have learned this secret, so that anywhere, at any time, I am content, whether I am full or hungry, whether I have too much or too little.

There it is – the secret to living joy in every situation, the full life of eucharisteo.  Twice Paul writes it, ‘I have learned…’  Learned…..Learn how to be thankful – whether empty or full.  (AV)

I want the hunt, the long sleuth, the careful piercing together.  To learn how to be grateful and happy, whether hands full or hands empty.  That is a scret worth spending a life on learning. (AV)

             In this devotion Voskamp first talks of making her list of gifts.  She asks if this is how you learn the language of God.  Is this the code?

            It made me think of my God-text letters on the beach.  I sought them out as a coded message from God.  What was God saying in the piles of seaweed and driftwood on the beach?   If we approach everything in an attitude of deciphering God’s messages to us, we will find that God is constantly communicating with us. 

            I have started my list….I’m only up to 75 God-gifts I have recognized in the past week or so. 

            Another sampling…..penguin-attired boys, bells chiming in the wind, breakfast with friends, huckleberries and peaches together, building with blocks, pinecone shrimp sticks, candlelight, rainbows, book exchanges, waterfalls, parking spaces, butterflies on mountain tops, pink-tinged clouds…..

Tuesday, September 30  Naming Grace

Genesis 2:19-20 VOICE

Then He brought them to the man and gave him the authority to name each creature as he saw fit: whatever he decided to call it, that became its name.

• Naming offers the gift of recognition.  To name is to learn the language of Paradise. (AV)
• I name.  And I know the face I face.  God’s!  God is in the details; God is in the moment.  God is in all that blurs by in a life – even the hurts in a life. (AV)
• Now, in the Bible a name….reveals the very essence of a thing, or rather its essence as God’s gift….To name a thing, in other words, is to bless God for it and in it. (John Piper, WHEN I DON’T DESIRE GOD)

            To write down a list of God-gifts is to name the gifts.  To name them gives them value.  Our son Luke names everything.  Every stuffed raccoon had a name, his first car was Tinkerbell (Tink for short!); his guitars are named, the tiny notebook computer is Bitsy Betsy.  Names give them recognition as something special.  But how do we name the less recognizable gifts from God?  We have to seek them out.  We put words to the feeling, the experience, the moment.  And those words define the essence as a gift from God. 

            We got cold and wet today at the Habitat build….the 'Names' on my list reflect the joy of today’s blessings:  old raingear still available; hot coffee; hot soup; hot showers; dinner invitations.

Wednesday, October 1   Praying Grace

Daniel 2:23

I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors:

You have given me wisdom and power.

Daniel is a man of power-prayer…three times a day Daniel prayed thanksgiving for the everyday common.

The only real prayers are the ones mouthed with thankful lips.  Prayer, to be prayer, to have any power to change anything, must first speak thanks.

When I give thanks for the seemingly microscopic, I make a place for God to grow within me.

The ‘dare’ to write down one thousand things I love is really a dare to name all the ways that God loves me. (AV)

            Today I realized how important it is to include my thanksgivings in my prayer pictures, not just my requests!  A prayer must FIRST speak thanks!!  Only in the last few, usually because I had extra ‘room’, have I started including my list of answered prayers, joys, and thanksgivings!  I should draw this part first!  Blessings and praise!  Thank you God!  And then….prayerfully include all those for whom I ask God’s intercession, for those hurting and in pain, for situations beyond my control that I leave in God’s hands.  Now I am challenged to scribble another prayer tonight!  

I STARTED with a blue sky of joys and blessings!  THEN I went to a mountain of current concerns; the fall foliage concentrates on Habitat places, people, and slogans, and all the green are my year's worth of ABC prayers.
WHEW!!!
(Scene is from Glacier NP - views up from MacDonald Creek)

THURSDAY, October 2  All-Here Grace

Psalm 50:23 VOICE

Set out a sacrifice I can accept: your thankfulness.
    Do this, and you will honor Me.

• The hurry makes us hurt. ….I don’t really want MORE time; I just want ENOUGH time, time to do my one life well.
• It’s this sleuthing for the glory that slows a life.  In this space of time and sphere, I am attentive, aware, accepting the whole of the moment, weighing it down with me all here.  (AV)

            My first thought here was we are back to ENOUGH.  We’ve tossed it around in terms of retirement money, gratitude and gratefulness, and now time.  What is ‘enough’ time?  Enough time, just perhaps, is the slowing of time.  When we slow it down, we seem to have the more…or the enough.  When we stop to acknowledge the glory, we pause long enough to turn the hurry into the enough.  Giving God ALL our attention for just those few slow-moments can make all the difference in a day, a life, well lived. 

FRIDAY, October 3  Hammering Grace

Matthew 7:24 MSG

 “These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock.

• “A nail is driven out by another nail;  habit is overcome by habit.” (Desiderius Erasmus)
• The whole of the life – even the hard – is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole.  There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.
• Life changing gratitude does not fasten to a life unless nailed through with one very specific nail at a time.
• Little nails and a steady hammer can rebuild a life. (AV)

            Hammers.  Nails.  Foundations of rock.  This screams of Habitat in so many ways.  We are between builds right now, but visiting Habitat friends.  Our discussions have been of builds, and supervisors, and fellow CAVs. 

            We spent three weeks preparing for the three stages of pouring the Habitat foundation.  I had NO idea of the prep work that went into concrete slabs built to withstand freezing temps, built to insulate against freezing temps.  But these homes are built on rock firm foundations, one tiny blessings at a time.  Nail by nail, each step in the process is a little piece of grace.  Trenching, supports, re-bar ties, air bubbles, leveling, foam – all are nails of grace.  Have I mentioned each one in my list?  Did I see the grace in each as I followed Steve’s directions daily? 

SATURDAY, October 5  Awakening Grace

1 Thessalonians 5:18 VOICE

Give thanks to God no matter what circumstances you find yourself in. 

• I had fallen asleep all day to the glory, everywhere.  (AV)
• “The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life.” (Robert Louis Stevenson)

            What set off my alarm clock of gratitude today?  What awakened me once again to the blessings, the infinite graces of God?  I think it might have started with the abundance of coffee Pam made this morning long before we came into the house.  Or was it the bubbling pot of oatmeal and a bowl of fresh fruit carefully cut and prepared?  Perhaps the twinkle in Mama Barb’s eyes as we said our goodbyes?  For sure it was the powdery dusting of snow on the Crazy Mountains, then the Big Belts, then the Bridgers!  Sparkling rivers, vast fields of golden grass, herds of antelope and elk.  My senses have been awakened over and over on this day of God-gifts.  But I am sure there are days when I oversleep the alarm, when my thanks are forgotten, and God longs to gently shake my shoulder and whisper, “Look! I’m here!” 

SUNDAY, October 5  All-Is-Well Grace

Genesis 21:19

Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.

I’m blind to joy’s well every time I really don’t want it.  The well is always there.  I choose not to see it.

If I am rejecting the joy that is hidden somewhere deep within this moment, am I not ultimately rejecting God?

The well is always here….You have to want to see the well before you can drink from it.  You have to want to see the joy, the God in the moment.

There is always a well – all is well. 

            How often do we see the well as dry?  The glass half empty?  We can’t drink of God’s grace when there is nothing to drink ….or so we think.  But the well is always present and we are nearly always thirsty.  Why does it take us so long to realize the joy within the water, the joy within our God?  Come to the water and drink.