ONE THOUSAND GIFTS (Voskamp): Part 6

PART 6: Devotions 51-60

ONE THOUSAND GIFTS:
A Devotional Finding Everyday Graces

Ann Voskamp (Zondervan, 2012)

WEDNESDAY, November 5  Re-Membering Grace

Luke 17:18 MSG

Jesus said, ‘Were not ten healed?  Where are the nine?  Can none be found to come back and give glory to God except this outsider?’  Then he said to him, ‘Get up.  On your way.  Your faith has healed and saved you.’

• This fallen world never stops dis-membering who we are.  We’re all breaking a bit more every day, even in small ways.
• But when we remember how He blesses, loves us, when we recollect His goodness to us, we heal – we re-member.

            Some days, some lives, seem like an ever-flowing parade of despair: illness, job loss, broken relationships.  How in the world can one stop and say thank you in the midst of it?  Yet it is that very act that can begin the act of healing.  ‘Thank you, God, for the medicine that keeps me alive this day for my family.’  ‘Thank you, God, for this opportunity to explore new employment.’  Thank you, God.  Nothing goes to waste.  All the broken pieces will be re-membered into the whole once again.  

            I continue now to weave my thanks into my daily prayers.  I BEGIN with them.  Abundant gifts of pumpkin, ability to bake to share, Jed's journal submitted, Letter from Swansons, Lectionary group, Pink tint to storm clouds, Unknown melon revealed to be a honeydew!.....Thank you, God.  

THURSDAY, November 6  Storm Grace

Hebrews 12:28

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe. 

• Neglecting to give thanks only deepens the wound of the world.  What of faith in a God who wastes nothing and makes all into grace?
• To thank God in all is to bend the knee in allegiance to God, who alone knows all. 
• That which I refuse to thank Christ for, I refuse to believe Christ can redeem.

        Today I realized that I have listed nearly 300 God-Grace-Gifts so far, and probably not one of them is thanking God for something I perceive as ‘bad’. Do I not believe God is present in these issues, these unrecognizable blessings?  God can work through the garbage and bring good from it.  I need to include thanks for such in my list so God can start the process of transformation. 

        So….Thank you, God, for Mom’s health problems.  They have started our family on a path to reconciliation.  Thank you, God, for my brother's addiction.  It is helping me realize my weight problem carries similar traits.  I can’t ask Mac to be strong and resist when I am not and can not.   Thank you, God, for the trials you set before me.  From garbage to grace…..

FRIDAY, November 7  Breathing Grace

Psalm 30:5  BBE

….in his grace there is life; weeping may be for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

• Fear is banished in this present moment when the presence of I AM fills it. 
• When you are weak, take a deep breath.  Breathe.  Say His name.  Say YES to God. Eucharisteo.
• Black notes make music too. 

    In the dark notes of our days, music can be found.  We simply must open our ears and our hearts to listen.  When fear stops us in our tracks and the world suddenly seems silent, may we listen carefully.  There is music in the black notes.  There is music in our pain, and that melody can carry us over the fear, over the discord, into the joy of gratitude and thank-giving.  Take a deep breath and listen, listen to the melody of the world.  God is singing to us. 

Jed had black notes thrown at him last spring in regard to his PhD.  Disappointment and despair.  But God was composing the music all along – a better dissertation in the long run.  Completed yesterday.  Grace at work.  

SATURDAY, November 8  Amaryllis Grace

Isaiah 14:24  GNT

What I have planned will happen. What I have determined to do will be done.

• The daily practice of the discipline of gratitude is the way to daily practice the delight of God. 
• Plant the truth in me: there are gifts worth counting to one thousand for, gifts that will emerge out of the deathly dark.  Unfurl amaryllis grace today.

“Joy is the gigantic secret of the Christian.”  (GK Chesterman)

            I find it amazing that today is amaryllis grace: grace that comes after the dark of death, beauty from a bulb left dormant for a long time.  Several beloved Baker figures passed away this week.  Funerals are coming up, opportunities to celebrate life in the wake of loss.  Two are for men who died too soon – in their 50’s.  ‘Not fair’ we think.  But buried beneath the tomb-dark comes resurrection.  May we give thanks for that.  This reminds me somewhat of the bulb analogy for life-death-heaven I read previously.  God has the joy of the blossom awaiting us.  It can be in this life on a different level if we practice gratitude.  Look for the flowers blooming today.  

SUNDAY, November 9  Happiest Grace

Romans 5:15 GNT

It is true that many people died because of the sin of that one man [Adam]. But God's grace is much greater, and so is his free gift to so many people through the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ.

• You can’t earn God’s love.  You can only turn toward God’s love.
• Holy joy lies in the habit of murmuring thanks to God for the smallest of graces.
• Happiness is not getting something but being given to Someone, Christ.

            Each time we utter our thanks, our acknowledgement of a moment of God grace, we have turned ourselves once more to God, to God’s love.  We have unwrapped another part of the gift of God love’s.  This isn’t a package we open in one moment, one day, but in a lifetime of thanks.  This package may come in the tiniest of boxes or in unwrap-able size.   Surely receiving free gifts always make us happy!  Surely our parents taught us to say thank you!  Over and over again!

MONDAY, November 10  Comforting Grace

Isaiah 49:13 

Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth;

            Burst into song, you mountains!

For the Lord comforts his people

and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.

• When God moves us out of our comfort zone – into places that are way bigger than us, places that are difficult, hard, painful, places that even hurt – this is a gift.
• The greatest gift we can ever receive is the gift of losing our earthly security and comfort….so we can unwrap the intimacy of the Savior and his heavenly comfort.
• Those who fully live, who live ecstatic lives of joy, embrace moving out of comfort zones.  Ecstatic joy is found outside of static comfort zones.  Because it’s moving out to where the Spirit moves.  Like the wind, the Spirit always moves.

            It seems impossible to consider death, divorce, poverty, loss as a GIFT from God.  But for those of us in our secure, safe, comfortable western culture, it takes something drastic for us to realize our need to depend on God.  It takes shifting us out of the comfort zone of independence.  Christianity is strongest right now in those countries and cultures where suffering is rampant.  Faith is sometimes all the people have and they are able to make it a joyful experience.

            I love the Spirit analogy.  The Spirit-Wind is always on the move, shifting and changes.  So must we as we allow that Spirit to infiltrate our lives.  Give thanks for the uncomfortable.  There is comfort to be found within it from a compassionate God who seeks what is best for each one of us.  

TUESDAY, November 11  Cycling Grace

Isaiah 6:3

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.

• It’s the astonishing truth that while I serve Christ,  it is He who serves me….that I never need serve in my own strength.
• It’s the fundamental, lavish, radical nature of the upside-down economy of God: empty in order to fill.

            We are back to the Multiplying-Backwards-Math of God.  The more we give, the more we get; the more we serve, the more we are served.  It’s how God operates.  The pot must empty before it can be refilled to overflowing.

            The key is the repayment plan.  We don’t necessarily get back what we gave, only more – we receive in return what we NEED in abundance.  Such God currency may take the form of joy, contentment, a deeper relationship or awareness.  God knows best what to give back.  It can be an ever-spinning cycle of grace.  

WEDNESDAY, November 12  Wearing Grace

Zephaniah 3:17 MSG & VOICE

Your God is present among you,
    the champion who will rescue you.
Happy to have you back, he’ll calm you with his love
    and delight you with his songs.

• What if we wanted to BE beautiful more than we wanted to BUY beautiful?
• Happiness and healing is in the opening of a hand…

            What if we WORE grace?  What if we wore the love of God as a garment that defined who we are and what matters to us?  What if we made that conscious choice day in and day out?  Choose love.  Choose to radiate God’s grace.  Indeed, a God who is so present in our lives that we can’t help but bubble over with that love in happiness and joy.  

THURSDAY, November 13  Trumpeting Grace

1 Chronicles 16:10-12 MSG

Thank God! Call out his Name!
    Tell the whole world who he is and what he’s done!
Sing to him! Play songs for him!
    Broadcast all his wonders!
Revel in his holy Name,
    God-seekers, be jubilant!        

• ‘Honk if you’re happy’ is really, ‘To be happy, honk’.
• ‘Give thanks if you are joy-filled’ is really ‘To be joy-filled, give thanks’.
• If a joy-filled heart is good medicine, then giving thanks is my daily prescription.

            Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?  Which comes first, happiness or thanksgiving?  Voskamp tells the story of a man who reluctantly followed his grand-daughter’s request to honk when daily viewing a tattered sign by the road, ‘Honk if you’re happy’.  He gradually discovered the action made him look forward to a new day of honking, a moment turned to minutes and then happiness seeped into all his life.  By honking?  No, by praising and thanking. 

            This ends Voskamp’s book.  But it will not end my effort to record the God-gifts that I encounter each day.  And I will try to keep going once I reach One Thousand.  For now, can I get to 500 by year’s end!  Yes!  How can I BE a blessing 500 times over as well?  Now THAT is a holy challenge!!  

            How jubilant is my thanks?  Do I secrete my God-Grace-Gifts away in the book and never share them?  Do I trumpet my praise?  Do I begin my prayers with thanksgiving?  How often do I verbalize a ‘Thank you God’ when in the presence of others?  Hallelujah! 

FRIDAY, November 14  Becoming Grace

Genesis 12:2

I will bless you….and you will be a blessing.

• This work – the thousand endless jobs of daily life – they each give the opportunity for one to become the gift.
• The way through the pain is to reach out to others in theirs.
• God can enter into me, even me, and use these hands, these feet, to be His love, a love that goes on and on forever, endless cycle of grace.

            We are blessed to become the blessing.  Our every action can become an act of thanks when performed in such an attitude of gratitude. 

            I wondered in reading this final devotion if I do enough acknowledging of my thanks to those OTHER than God?  When I write down the name of someone who has been a blessing to me, do I share with the person?  How often do I publicly affirm other people in my life?  Verbally?  A note or card?  To become grace, to become a blessing, I must remember to bless in an active way.