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?