ONE THOUSAND GIFTS (Voskamp) Part 5

PART 5: Devotions 41-50

ONE THOUSAND GIFTS: A Devotional Finding Everyday Graces

Ann Voskamp (Zondervan, 2012)

SUNDAY, October 26  Lovely Grace

Romans 1:19-21 MSG

But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being.

• Augustine asked two questions of the world: ‘If there is no God, why is there so much good?  If there is a God, why is there so much evil?’
• I wonder if I have spent a lifetime murmuring under my breath only the second question.  Is our default to ignore the expected and focus on the unexpected?
• Maybe this is why the world hemorrhages – if we think God doesn’t care, why should we?
• Every breath is a gift and if life is a gift, there is a Giver and if there is a Giver – all’s grace.  When all’s grace – we give, because a gift never stops being a gift to be given….

              Whoa.  I had to stop and read parts of this lengthy devotion over several times.  I had never seen Augustine’s questions before.  All gifts are signs of good, signs of a God who cares very deeply.  If we focus on the evil, we can easily blame God – why don’t you care?   Maybe the question really is of ourselves, why don’t we care?

            All gifts of grace make God’s presence plain and clear: Creation in all its glory makes it clear.  God loves us.  God cares.   Give thanks.  

MONDAY, October 27  Kindling Grace

Psalm 107:6,8  VOICE

In their distress, they called out to the Eternal,
    and He saved them from their misery…..

May they erupt with praise and give thanks to the Eternal
    in honor of His loyal love
And all the wonders He has performed for humankind!

“It is a good thing to be without a trouble; but it is a better thing to have a trouble, and know how to get grace enough to bear it.” (C. Spurgeon) 

“Thanksgiving has attained its rightful place in us, only when it is part of all our days and dominates all our experiences.” (JR Miller)

• What if I gave thanks in the trouble, for the trouble, because the trouble is a gift that causes me to turn to God?
• It’s only when grief and grace kindle us to the very same flame of gratitude to God – it’s only then that our love for God ignites in a pure blaze of glory. AV

Yes! Believe it or not!  A Scribble!  Long overdue!

KINGDOM KINDLING

I awake each morning to a cold fire,

A spirit dulled by the slumber of soul.

How to light my flame? 

How to LIGHT my day?

Gather the manna.

Gather the bread of the Word.

Gather Kindling-Grace.

Slowly, word-by-word, feed the fire.

Manna-sticks of praise –

Moments of God-glory-grace that make

The embers glow and flicker…

Kindling of fears, hurts and pain,

Give thanks for God’s love and presence.

Feed the fire with thanksgiving

And watch the flames ignite.

The Kingdom blaze must be constantly fed

With Kindling-praise.

Feed your fire all day long

And let the glory burn within you.  

TUESDAY, October 28  Endless Grace

Colossians 2:6-7,10  MSG

My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. …School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving…..You don’t need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.

• Stress can be an addiction and worry can be our lunge for control and we forget the answer to THIS moment. AV

“All fear is but the notion that God’s love ends.  Do you think I end, that I will not be enough?  I am infinite, child.”  AV

            I love the Message translation: ‘You don’t need a telescope or a microscope…to realize the breadth of God…’  Indeed we just need to step outside ourselves for a moment and really see the fullness of Creation, of ourselves, of relationships, and the power of GOOD over all.  That power is of God through Christ.  And we have it in us IF we will but accept it and allow that fullness to become part of us.  (Fullness reminds me of my Weight Watchers meeting last night...Shall I fill up on God, not food?  Good slogan!)

            But too often we are plagued by Voskamps quote, ‘All fear is but the notion that God’s love ends…’  Is not fear a lack of trust in the infinite power and love of our Creator?  We fear because we know we don’t have the ability, we are not in control.  Christ can make that Fear into Faith when God is in control.  So easy to write, so hard to practice.  I can start by adding to my grace list, with thanksgiving and praise, acknowledgement of the endless stream of grace poured into my life.  Thank you, God.  

WEDNESDAY, October 29  Losing Grace

James 1:17  MSG

Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle.

• The song is always found in the surrender.
• When you wake to losing someone, something, you win love.  When you realize that what you have you will lose, you win real eyes.  You win grateful joy.
• The way to love life is to imagine losing it.  ‘The one who loses his life finds it.’  AV

The scripture made me think of this scribble
with its fountain of God-light. 

            ‘The song is found in the surrender’.  There is something beautifully poetic about that phrasing.  When we lose, we win.  Think about it.  If you lose your vision temporarily (maybe your glasses need an upgrade!), aren’t you so much more grateful for sight when vision is restored?  Are not the colors a little brighter?  Do you not notice the tiny shimmers of God-light that radiate throughout the day?  Loss causes us to stop and realize the value of what we are losing. 

            Today I am going to stop and appreciate those gifts from God that are cascading down like ‘rivers of light’.  Say grateful thanks and surrender myself to drown in the river of God.  In so doing, what gifts of God-grace will I be blessed to see?

THURSDAY, October 30  Joyous Grace

James 1:2 VOICE

Don’t run from tests and hardships, brothers and sisters. As difficult as they are, you will ultimately find joy in them.

“No man can live without joy.” – Thomas Aquinas

• While I may not always feel joy, God asks me to give thanks in all things because He knows that the FEELING of joy begins in the ACTION of thanksgiving.
• Only self can kill joy.

            We control our own happiness.  It’s a matter of attitude.  We control how we respond to people and situations.  They can bring us down or bring us up.  That attitude begins with gratitude.  Give thanks for the situation and what it brings to you.  Give thanks for the people involved.  Give thanks that God is at work in your life, whether you can perceive it or not.  And suddenly, in the midst of all that thanksgiving, we can find joy.  Sometimes we might have to dig fairly deep in the well of the thanks, but the joy is there, ready to bubble forth.  

FRIDAY, October 31  Pit Grace

Psalm 103:2-4  MSG

 O my soul, bless God.
    From head to toe, I’ll bless his holy name!
O my soul, bless God,
    don’t forget a single blessing!

 He forgives your sins—every one.
    He heals your diseases—every one.
    He redeems you from hell—saves your life!

• Do I really smother my own joy because I believe anger achieves more than love?
• How did Jesus do it again?  He turned his eyes.  ‘And looking up to heaven, he gave thanks….’
• Contemplative simplicity isn’t a matter of circumstances, it’s a matter of focus.

            How do we react when angry?  Usually we lash out, use words we instantly regret, and desire to get back in some way at the one who angered us, be it kids or co-workers or spouse.  How that anger might be diffused if we followed the approach of Jesus.  First give thanks.  Take a moment to focus on God and say thank you for this person, for this situation, for what we might gain from it, IF we keep our sight on God and not on the situation.  Blessings trump all.  

SATURDAY, November 1  Shielding Grace

Luke 9:23 GNT

 And he said to them all, “If you want to come with me, you must forget yourself, take up your cross every day, and follow me.”

• Your word is our sword against the pain of this world.
• Christian hands never clasp and He doesn’t give gifts for gain because a gift can never stop being a gift – it is always meant to be given.
• How will this planet change if God’s people do not become its change??

            When I went online to read this passage in multiple translations, I suddenly was struck with the word daily, every day.  Not just after church on Sunday, not just when the fancy strikes.  We are called to act upon our faith EVERY SINGLE DAY. 

            Voskamp’s last quote reminds me of Ghandi’s:  “Be the change you want to see in the world.”  We cannot harden ourselves to the suffering just because it is not within our little ‘realm’.  We must respond.  It is our call.  Our response may take a variety of forms: personal, financial, prayerful, but we must return the blessing, we must continue to give the gifts away.

SUNDAY, November 2  Full-Bodied Grace

John 13:12, 14 GNT

 “Do you understand what I have just done to you?” he asked. ^….. I, your Lord and Teacher, have just washed your feet. You, then, should wash one another's feet.

• Every one of us longs to live a life of gratitude for the blessings that expresses itself by becoming the blessing.
• Eucharisteo is giving grace away.  The communion service is only complete in service.
• God calls me … to give thanks away.  That thanks-giving might literally become thanks-living.  That our lives become the very blessings we have received. (AV)

            This reminds me of an anthem our choir sang, “Make me a blessing to someone today.” If we are truly thankful for our blessings, that joyful spirit overflows and we become the blessing.  I really like the phrase to make our thanks-giving our  thanks-living.  When we spend our day constantly focused outward in a search for God-graces, we can’t help but transfer  that attitude into a way of life.  Who needs a foot washing today?  How can I bless another? 

MONDAY, November 3  Dark Grace

Ephesians 1:11 MSG

It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us…

• Fullest life itself dawns from nothing but Calvary darkness and tomb-cave black into the radiance of Easter morning.
• Darkness transfigures into light, bad transfigures into good, grief into grace, empty into full.  God wastes nothing – makes everything work out according to His plan. 

            “Out of darkness, into light” was the theme from some Christmas years and years ago.  But the phrase has stuck with me.  Today’s message reminds us that we have to experience the dark to appreciate the light.  I loved the last quote – ‘God wastes nothing’ – nothing happens to us that God cannot transfigure.  We must have the patience to work with and in God to recognize the transforming light.  God doesn’t WILL bad to happen, but with an ever watchful eye, our Lord can change it, can change US, to bring the dark into the light of day, the light of grace. 

TUESDAY, November 4  Strained Grace

Psalm 7:17 MSG

I’m thanking God, who makes things right.
I’m singing the fame of heaven-high God.

• Music is made in stress.  A string pulled tight, it has to be plucked, it has to be stressed.
• Stressed and empty and stretched right out, this is the space of song….The resonance is in the surrender. 

            Rick worked this past weekend on the siding of the church, blessed to be in a group that was serenaded constantly by a member who always was humming a tune, singing songs that filled his heart. 

            Singing and praise can fill a hurting heart, hearts wounded and relationships in peril.  But it takes the reaching out, the stress and the tension first, to allow the music space to happen.  There is a broken relationship in my life, one that has wounded us as a family.  I want to take that tension, surrender to my responsibility in the pain, and allow the music of reconciliation to happen.  So I will thank God, with the confidence that in His name and power, things will be made right.  I’m going to sing today and allow my heart to heal.  

ONE THOUSAND GIFTS (Voskamp): Part 4

PART 4: Devotions 30-40

ONE THOUSAND GIFTS: A Devotional Finding Everyday Graces

Ann Voskamp (Zondervan, 2012)

WEDNESDAY, October 15  Seed Grace

Genesis 1:29 VOICE

Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant that grows on the earth and every fruit-bearing tree. They will be your food and nourishment.

• The seeds, they fall into my hand small, jewels.  I am holding seeds, first gift He ever bestowed upon His people. … But to look at seeds and believe He will feed us?
• To hand someone seeds for his swelling, panging starvation, and ask him to believe in a feast – is this what everyday faith is?
• He gives, He gifts.  He gifts with seeds as small as moments, grace upon grace, and the unlikely here and now, it shall sustain you, feed you.  Do not disdain the small.  The promise of feast is within the moments.  Our enough is always in the now, because He never leaves us. (AV)

            Seeds are small, often rather bland in appearance, sometimes downright miniscule.  The flowers, the fruit, the abundance that results can only be considered a miracle.  Tiny God-gifts are the same.  What perhaps appears insignificant or ordinary is transformed by God into abundant blessing. 

            I start a new Habitat build today.  Are the nails my seeds?  Are these small bits of metal the building blocks for grace?  The seeds that will become the feast of a home for someone?  May I continue to keep my eyes wide open to the miracle of the moment, the feast in the seeds of God.  

THURSDAY, October 16 Transplanting Grace

Revelation 21:5 GNT

Then the one who sits on the throne said, “And now I make all things new!”

• A plant isn’t a flower but a weed only by function of its place.
• Transplant the weed to the heart and it blooms a flower, and I might function in this place.  Love is ridiculous and reconfigures everything.

                        Sometimes the most unpleasant of plants can be beautiful: A purple thistle, a field of dandelions, even the intricate design of a goat’s head.  Sometimes the most unpleasant of events can produce unexpected joy.  Sometimes the most unpleasant of people can be transplanted by the love of God as shared by those around them.

            Am I looking for the rose or the thorn?  Am I looking for  weed or flower?  Am I seeking the fortune or the flaw?  I will find what I seek and my focus will remain as such.  May I seek the new in Christ, the fresh, the transplanted beauty in all as God works grace in all.  

FRIDAY, October 17  Lowest Grace

John 3:30  MSG

This is the assigned moment for him to move into the center, while I slip off to the sidelines.

• If I focus on humility, I look inward to assess if I’m sufficiently humble, and in the very act, humility darts and I’m proud, self-focused. AV
• Receiving God’s gifts is a gentle, simple movement of stooping lower. AV

“I used to think that God’s gifts were on shelves one above the other,  and that the taller we grew in Christian character, the easier we should reach them. I find now that God’s gifts are on shelves one below the other, and it is not a question of growing taller but of stooping lower, and that we have to go down, always down, to get his best gifts.” (GBF Hallock)

            John had it right.  To know Christ, we must allow him center stage.  We must humbly remain off stage.  There, in the shadows of grace, we can receive the abundant blessings God is constantly putting before us.  Yet, humility is unassumed.  It must come naturally.  If forced, pride overwhelms.  So easy to say, hard to balance.

            Without forethought, to lower oneself, to step back and gratefully appreciate all that is before us – then we shall behold the grace of God.  

SATURDAY, October 18   Manna Grace

Deuteronomy 8:3  GNT

He made you go hungry, and then he gave you manna to eat, food that you and your ancestors had never eaten before. He did this to teach you that you must not depend on bread alone to sustain you, but on everything that the Lord says.

• When God gives manna moments, may we give thanks for the mystery.  When the manna makes no sense, God makes it our sustenance.  In our ‘what is it?’ moments, turn us to give thanks. (AV)

            Manna moments.  Those times when we are troubled, grieving, confused or doubting; when we agonize and cry out, ‘Why God? Why?’  The times when it will take all the faith we have to say thank you for that which we don’t understand.  To feed on the manna in gratitude in spite of our pain.

            Ebola strikes.  Isis kills.  Friends battle each other in Palestine or the Ukraine.  Planes crash. Babies die. Cancer strokes.  Where is God in the pain of these moments?  Feeding us manna and saying ‘Trust me! Thank me!’

            Manna moments of grace.  Thank you, God.

SUNDAY, October 19  Bread Grace

2 Corinthians 1:20 MSG

Whatever God has promised us gets stamped with the YES of Jesus.

• Opening the hand to receive the moments. Trusting what is received to be grace.  Taking it as bread.
• We take the moments as bread and give thanks and the thanks itself becomes bread. The thanks itself nourishes.  Thanks feeds our trust.

            This is my body.  The bread.  Christ.  Nourishment and sustenance.  The kind that never fails to fill our hungry souls.  When we look upon our gratitude journal, our recording of God-gifts of grace, we are feeding our soul with the bread of God.  We are fortifying ourselves with the Bread-YES of Christ.  With thanksgiving we offer each morsel of grace moments back to God and in the thanks we are sustained.  Bread Grace.  What a great breakfast.  

MONDAY, October 20  Wedded Grace

Ephesians 5:31-32 GNT

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and unite with his wife, and the two will become one.”  There is a deep secret truth revealed in this scripture, which I understand as applying to Christ and the church.

• “In Christ, you have immediate access to God and all of this is yours – joy, acceptance, completeness, rest, righteousness, access to the throne of God.  You are sealed and He has pledged Himself to His people and you are His.”
• The vows of the Christ, they are covenant, and He lasts when we lose everything else and all the gifts are in Christ alone. (AV) 

            The sweetness of honey lasts forever.  It may crystallized or change form, but the taste lingers for centuries.  Sometimes honey is given away at weddings to be a reminder of the sweetness of the moment that will last for eternity.  Each God-gift we discover is like a tiny taste of honey, a reminder of the wedding pledge God has made to us and we to God.  We have taken vows in this relationship as well and pledged ourselves to God. 

TUESDAY, October 21  Love-Song Grace

Jeremiah 31:3 VOICE

    “I have loved you with an everlasting love—
        out of faithfulness I have drawn you close.

• It’s a new voice, this endless stream of grace, one I never get over.  This love song He is singing, it is the antithesist of life’s theme song, that refrain of rejection I know so well.  (AV)
• The most fundamental thing is not how we think of God, but how God thinks of us. (CS Lewis)

          To give thanks daily, hourly, minute-by-minute, is to constantly unwrap the God-gifts of grace.  To open a new present that is bursting with love, flowing forth with the music of life.  This weekend I unwrapped a hug from a son, the warmth of family memories, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee.  I unwrapped the joy of seeing the Baker City 100 miles sign outside Caldwell and the excitement of Pleasant Hill and a ‘first view’ of the Elkhorns as you crest the summit.  God-gifts, waiting to be unwrapped, waiting for the thank you note to be sent, the praise uttered. 

          Listen to God’s Love-Song!  Sing along with the music! 

WEDNESDAY, October 22  

One-Hundred-Times-a-Day Grace

2 Corinthians 4:15 MSG

Every detail works to your advantage and to God’s glory: more and more grace, more and more people, more and more praise!

• Blessings keep our awareness of life’s holy potential ever present.
• It is GK Chesterman who encapsulated the truth of my numbering life: ‘The greatest of poems is an inventory.’  (AV)

            I returned to the lectionary bible study last night at church.  We always start off with ‘Where did you see God this week?’ and ‘Where do you need God?’  It seemed like the first question can be answered by the list of graces filling the back pages of my annual journal.  I am up to #209, having started Voskamp’s book 35+ days ago.  What I have found in this exercise is that a concentration on the blessing removes the distraction or disappointment of the thorns of the day.  I wrote in my blog the other day about the noise from a campfire group at the RV Park – loud piercing laughter noise that went on and on until around 2:30am.  I was getting upset and angry about it when I remembered the devotion for that day:  This noise is my manna.  Thank God for it.  So I said thank you for people who have a sense of humor, who have something to laugh about and someone to laugh with.  I went to sleep shortly after that!  Counting blessings can produce good sleep!

          One other thought - the 100 times a day concept reminds me of Celtic Spirituality - the focus that ALL of life, from washing the dishes to bathing the baby to baking the bread, is wrapped in the holiness of God.  All of our moments are moments for prayer and thanksgiving.  What a wonderful thought! 

THURSDAY, October 23  Numbered Grace

Psalm 90:12 VOICE

Teach us to number our days
    so that we may truly live and achieve wisdom.

• Number the beats, record the blessings, enumerate the gifts, see ONE at the center of it all and know there is much and it is fleeting.
• The way to learn to number our days is to count the moments of His grace. AV

            ‘Our days are numbered’ or so the saying goes.  We know our time on this world is limited, but those days can be so much, much more when we number them with blessings, with moments of gratitude and grace. 

            It seems like it was easier to recognize the God-gifts while I was immersed in the glory of national parks, drives through incredible mountain scenery.  Now I am back in the ordinary, familiar environment of home.  May I continue to ‘number’ my days with a recognition of the grace surrounding me here in this place:  the tiny tomatoes still clinging to the vine, even in October!, the bold blooms of geraniums on the front porch, the warm hugs of return from friends, the color contrast of silver maple leaves, golden flecks drifting slowly down the Powder River, yes….the list of familiar gifts can be numbered.  May I unwrap each with care.  

FRIDAY, October 24  Affectionate Grace

Hosea 2:19-20 GNT

Israel, I will make you my wife;
    I will be true and faithful;
    I will show you constant love and mercy
    and make you mine forever.
 I will keep my promise and make you mine,
    and you will acknowledge me as Lord.

No one is capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the Kingdom of Night. (Elie Wiese)

• What is greater proof to the world of the power of the gospel of Christ than the world witnessing the power of profuse love FOR Christ? AV

          I take so much for granted.  I have lived a blessed life – a loving childhood, good health, solid community, family, husband and kids.  I have not lived in the Kingdom of Night.  I don’t want to go there just to be thankful, but I do think we who are blessed have to look harder to recognize God-gifts.  We are used to putting a different wrapping paper on grace – perhaps one of ‘coincidence’ or ‘luck’, perhaps ‘good fortune’ or ‘clean living’.  But are not all really the grace of God? 

                                                

SATURDAY, October 25 Standing Grace

Isaiah 60:18

No longer will violence be heard in your land,

   Nor ruin or destruction within your borders;

But you will call your walls Salvation and your gates Praise.     

• God doesn’t need us to praise Him, but He needs us to praise.
• Unless we are intentional about giving God glory throughout the day, our days unintentionally can give way to grumbling.
• Do doxology, not destruction.  AV

          We talked a lot at Presbytery about peace, justice, inclusiveness – all positive concepts designed to build up rather than destroy.  They are a means of praise, thanks that keep us focused on God-gifts.  They build bridges of community and communication.  Am I building walls of praise on a daily basis?  Am I singing doxology?  

ONE THOUSAND GIFTS (Voskamp): Part 3

PART 3: Devotions 21-30

ONE THOUSAND GIFTS: A Devotional Finding Everyday Graces

Ann Voskamp (Zondervan, 2012)

MONDAY, October 6  Curative Grace

Numbers 21:9 MSG

So Moses made a snake of fiery copper and put it on top of a flagpole. Anyone bitten by a snake who then looked at the copper snake lived.

• First the eyes. Always first, the inner eyes. Looking is the love.  Looking is the evidence of the believing. (AV)
• How we behold determines if we hold joy. Behold glory and be held by God.
• How we look determines how we live….IF we live.

“Faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God.” (AW Tozer, In Pursuit of God)

            Hurting? Grieving? Look for the gratitude bandaid – thankfulness and acknowledgement, recognition of all God-Gifts.  It is said that pain, depression, and sorrow can best be ‘cured’ by turning one’s thoughts outward – to an appreciation and attention to others, to the needs of others, and to a heart set on gratitude for what IS good. 

TUESDAY, October 7  Perceiving Grace

Matthew 6:22-23 MSG

Your eyes are windows into your body.  If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light.

If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar.

If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have!

• Who would ever know the greater graces of comfort and perseverance, mercy, and forgiveness, patience and courage, if no shadows fell over a life?  (AV)

            We who have eyes to see perceive the world through our vision.  God-gifts of grace are the glasses, the magnifying lenses, the prisms that take the unpleasant hardships and allow us to see them in a new light: the light of God.  Poop on the sidewalks? Give thanks the wildlife is flourishing!  Rain clouds that spoil the view? The thirsty earth is quenched and fire danger lowered!  Let the prism show a new angle of sight, a new perception! 

WEDNESDAY, October 8  Hunting Grace

Psalm 23:5-6

My cup overflows.  Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the home of the Lord forever. 

• Have vessel.  Now must find beauty. 
• Empty containers can make us seekers, hunters of glory.  I need to find grace beauty to fill the emptiness.  Beauty, bought with attention.  (AV)

            Voskamp writes of having to find a vase when flowers were brought inside.  Then she bought four matching empty vases to be filled constantly with wildflowers, grasses, branches of Creation.  She sent the children out to hunt for God-glory.  Our journal to record the graces is like the empty vessel waiting to be filled. 

            When the empty is visible, it makes us seekers, hunters of glory with which to fill the emptiness.  We actively search.  We want to record.  Is our life somewhat the same?  Empty or meaningless until we can fill it with the glory of God, with daily reminders of God-with-us, God-IN-us.  May I fill my vessel this day. 

THURSDAY, October 9  Beautiful Grace

Psalm 27:4

One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek:

That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,

            To gaze in the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in his temple. 

• See beauty and we know it in the marrow, even if we have no words for it.  Someone is behind it.  Beauty Himself completes.
• God within is the one seeing God without. (AV)

What more you ask, do we want?  Ah, but we want so much more – something the books on aesthetics take little notice of.  But the poets….know all about it.  We do not want merely to see beauty, though.  God knows, even that is beauty enough.  We want something else which can hardly be put into words – to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bath in it, to become part of it.”  (CS Lewis)

            It isn’t hard to write this section as I spend the week surrounded by the wonder and beauty of God’s Creation.  This is ONE of God’s temples.  It is easy to see the face of God in moonrise and sunset, the intricate formations of Hot Springs, the elk bugling, and aspen colors.  It is harder and perhaps more important to seek that same beauty in the everyday dirty of life – the painful relationships, the chaos of schedules, the hurry, etc.  Everywhere is God’s temple, and the beauty of our Creator is there if we but have eyes to search for it. 

FRIDAY, October 10  Bridge Grace

Psalm 136:4 NLT

Give thanks to Him who alone does mighty miracles.  His faithfulness endures forever. 

• Trust is the bridge from yesterday to tomorrow, built with planks of thanks.  Remembering frames up gratitude.  Gratitude lays out the planks of trust.  I can walk the planks – from known to unknown – and know:  He holds. 
• Remembering is an act of thanksgiving.  It is thanksgiving that shapes a theology of trust; the Israelites bear witness and I see. 
• What did Jesus say at the Last Supper? Remember me. 

            We have a family saying ‘Misery makes memories’ whenever things go awry or not as planned.  But misery also allows us to trust God in ways we might not otherwise.  Our memories form bridges to the past and we recall the thousands of times God has carried us across.  When we give thanks we are continuing to build those bridges.  Every entry in my journal is another part of the bridge – a passage we can walk without fear.  I write this morning as Orion shines bright in the sky and the moonlight dances on the mountain.  God is good.  All the time. 

SATURDAY, October 11  Hard Grace

Philippians 3:10

I want to know Christ.  Yes, to know the power of his resurrection, and participate in his sufferings, to become like him in his death. 

• If you haven’t lost Christ, nothing is ever lost. 
• Eucharisteo is how Jesus….showed us to transfigure all things – take the pain that is given, ‘give thanks’ for it, and transform it into a joy that fills all emptiness. 
• The hard discipline is to lean into the ugly and whisper thanks to transfigure it into beauty.  (AV)

            How often have I yet included the ‘ugly’, the painful or sorrowful, on my list of God-graces. Yet these are the very places, the dry hotsprings of my soul, that demand the thanks to transfigure!  Until I thank God for them, they cannot be changed.   Thank God for cold fingers!  I am HERE in the beauty of sunlight hitting the grove of pines!  Thank God for inconvenience and suffering…and look to see transformation from them! 

SUNDAY, October 12  This-Moment Grace

Psalm 103:15, 17

The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field….

But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,

            And his righteousness with their children’s children. 

• Giving thanks to God is what ushers one into the very presence of God.  And this is why He asks us to always give thanks. 
• Be grateful for every moment we are given.
• Today is the last like this.  This place, this people, this moment – it will never again be JUST like this.  Cause my eyes to see everything in my life afresh.  I may not pass by here again.  Now is not a forever grace, but amazing grace.

            When I am surrounded by the glory of Creation, it is easy to get a geological sense of time.  This moment will last hundreds of years, because things so slowly change in nature.  But a visit to Yellowstone is different:  the hot springs come and go, bubbling today, not tomorrow.  One geyser erupted 50 times one year and only once the following!  When we visited the Old Man in the Mountain in NH in 1998, we said that nose will hang on for another hundred years.  On our return last year, we found it had fallen in 2005!! 

            Savor time spent with friends and family.  Make time for connections.  Act upon impulses that build bridges. Stop and smell the roses!   We can’t wait for tomorrow.  We must appreciate and give thanks for all the God-graces we find This-Moment, TODAY. 

MONDAY, October 13 Small Grace

Matthew 18:4 MSG

Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom.

“How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it.” (G.K. Chesterman)

• When I stand before immensity that heightens my smallness, I have never felt sadness, only burgeoning wonder. (AV)

            Stand outside on a clear dark night and gaze at the universe.  We feel small.  Incredibly small.   But we are filled with the glory of a God who is that big, yet cares for the small.  Our perspective is clear.  Yet too often we live with the self-centeredness of a small world built around ourselves.  We try to feel big, but our perspective is off.  We are so empty. 

            Oh to see the world as a child again.  To give thanks, to laugh and giggle, to wonder, and to appreciate all that there is on a level we often fail to see as adults.  Small grace isn’t really small at all.  It is the abundant grace that comes when we think small, when we perceive as a child.   

TUESDAY, October 14  Humble Grace

Matthew 5:5 MSG

“You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.

• Eucharisteo makes the knees the vantage point of a life.
• Expectations kills relationships – especially with God.  That’s what a child doesn’t have – this whole edifice of expectation.  Without expectation, what can topple the surprising wonder of the moment? 
• Instead of filling with expectations, the joy-filled expect nothing – and are filled. Surprise! 
• This is the way the small live.  Everyday.  Humbly.  With surprise.  Humbly. With Joy.(AV)

            Again, we are talking perspective here.  A child sees the world from a different vantage point.  I like Voskamp’s line about the knees providing this altered state.  Putting ourselves into constant prayerful thanksgiving gives us such a perspective – that of a child, that of humility.

            Expectations.  I had never really considered this angle before.  But to approach life as a child often means sans preconceived notions and the edge that experience produces.  If we can say thanks for it all, we have no expectations to be met, and therefore no disappointments.  God does not disappoint IF we come to God in that attitude of gratitude. 

            I expected to work for Habitat today.  We are not due to office issues.  Disappointed? Yes.  But now, I shall approach the day saying, ‘Where can I find God’s blessings in today?’  I’ll be on the lookout!