ONE THOUSAND GIFTS: A Devotional
Finding Everyday Graces
Ann Voskamp (Zondervan, 2012)
Wednesday,
September 17 Surprising Grace
2
Corinthians 12:9-10 MSG
I quit focusing on the handicap and began
appreciating the gift. …. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good
cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition,
bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger
I become.
Surprising
Grace: Authentic thanks is thanks for
ALL things….The life that counts blessings discovers its yielding more than it
seems.
Choosing
Grace: Choose to say YES to all God’s gifts.
His grace is given to fill us with glory.
The
book begins with the acknowledgement that everything comes from God, and God is
capable of wondrous things. When we
become overwhelmed by the evil and sin of the world, the bad stuff, may we open
our hearts to God’s bounty; open our minds to see and accept what God is
providing.
Thursday,
September 18 First
Grace
Romans
1:19-20 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:….the
mystery of His divine being.
Mark
Buchanan (Canandian author and pastor): “All the wickedness in the world begins
with an act of forgetting.”
First
Grace: Turn in thanks and everything turns – and God doesn’t turn away.
In
everything, give thanks and glory to God!
How many times is this concept repeated in the Bible? Over and over! And attitude of thanksgiving will change
us! God knows we are going to do wrong. He will forgive us. What God can’t forgive is when we ignore
Him. Start the day with thanksgiving and
praise for every little grace/God-gift I can see, and it will be a brighter,
fuller day.
Friday,
September 19 Thinking
Grace
Hebrews 13:15 GNT
Let us, then, always offer praise to God as our
sacrifice through Jesus, which is the offering presented by lips that confess
him as Lord.
“I would maintain that
thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled
with wonder.” (Chesterman)
Happiness
doubled with wonder. I love the
thought! When we seek God-gifts in
everything, we will see the world with eyes of wonder. It can’t help but put a smile on our
face.
“This is what great
artists and thinkers do – they stay awake to the wonder of God’s world. Great
thinkers are great thankers – the really great live gratefully.”(AV)
Saturday, September 20
Here-Now
Grace
Luke 22:19
And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to
them….
In the original
language, ‘he gave thanks’ reads ‘eucharisteo’ or thanksgiving. Fully broken
down, eucharisteo means charis or grace and chara or joy.
THANKSGIVING. GRACE.
JOY. A triplet of stars, a constellation in the black. This search for the constellation in the dark
– grace, thanksgiving, joy – it might be like that – a reaching for stars.
When we
approach the world with thanksgiving, we discover the grace and joy that comes
with God-gifts in the world right at our feet.
We find the grass isn’t greener over there….we don’t have to go
somewhere new. We simply need to look
closer and acknowledge what is growing right next to us, to the here and now of
our lives.
I rode a
ski lift today to the top of Big Mountain outside of Whitefish, MT. The view was spectacular as the jagged peaks
of Glacier National Park rose to the east, the mountains of Idaho to the west,
Flathead Lake and valley to the south.
The here and now of God was in the patchwork of color on the hillsides,
the red-orange, gold, green of huckleberry bushes, tamarack trees, and dark
green spruce. The here and now was in
the deep blue skies and a blaze orange sunset.
May we never be so preoccupied with looking for the extraordinary somewhere else that we miss the
God-ordinary in our own backyard.
SUNDAY, September 21 Anti-Anxiety Grace
Psalm 13:12 NASB
Surely I have composed
and quieted my soul;
Like a weaned child
rests against his mother,
My soul is like a
weaned child within me.
What is the answer to
anxiety? Calvin wrote, “The stability of the world depends on this rejoicing of
God in His works……If on earth, such praise of God does not come to pass….then
the whole order of nature will be thrown into confusion.”
Our worlds reel unless
we rejoice. A song of thanks steadies
everything. (AV)
I would
never have come up with the term anti-anxiety grace, but I have used the
concept before! We discuss Voskamp’s ideas In my Stress Management class when we ‘focus on the positive’ and students are encouraged to count their
blessings. Praising God doesn’t remove
the anxiety, but it does allow us to cope with our fears, our schedules, our
stress. It helps us approach each day with a smile on our face, a song in our heart, and a dance in our step.
PS. I have begun my list of God-gifts and added to it daily... Deep belly laughter, technology that allows communication, a good coach building teamwork, campfires and marshmallows, pixie dust, flowers growing in old trucks, compliments, hummus, mountain reflections in windows, free firewood, patchwork of hillside colors, gracious hospitality.....just a sampling.
MONDAY, September 22 TRUSTING GRACE
Philippians 4:6 VOICE
Don’t be anxious about things; instead, pray. Pray
about everything. He longs to hear your requests, so
talk to God about your needs and be thankful for what has come.
An untroubled heart relaxes, trusts, leans assured into His
ever-dependable arms. Trust, it’s the
antithesis of stress. (AV)
If trust must be earned, hasn’t God unequivocally earned our
trust with the sacrifice of his Son? (AV)
Now,
I look again at the verse above and am reminded again of the second half. Ask God, pray to God, and BE THANKFUL for
what has come. Everything that comes as
a God-gift we should give thanks….one by one.
Yesterday Rick and I hiked on an
absolutely glorious fall day in Glacier National Park. Our gifts from God? Abundant sunshine, solitude, butterflies,
panoramic views of fall foliage and jagged peaks, rock colors, flowers,
mountain goats….I could go on and on.
Did I have to trust? Yes….Rick
left the bear spray in the parking lot. So I breathed a short prayer…”Lord, keep us
safe” and then quickly went about savoring every step of the way
TUESDAY, September 23
Urgent Grace
Psalm 103:13-14
As a father has compassion on his children,
So the Lord
has compassion on those who fear him;
For he knows how we are formed,
He remembers that we are dust.
-
God gives us time. But who has time for God?
-
Hurry
empties the soul.
-
Who knows
how to take time and live with soul and body and God all in sync? (AV)
So what if we really
paid attention
And nickel-and-dimed
life away
On afternoon tag by
the cedars?
A string of bare toes
with a stack of old books,
This one lone bowl
filling with morning light
Day after day,
shelling out slow mindfulness
On whatnots of amazing
grace,
Collecting pieces of
God=glory.
This buying a bit of
medicine
That cures A.D.D. of
the soul. (AV)
I loved the last phrase: ADD of the soul. We are a hurry-up society, time is short,
rush, RUSH! But God grants us an
eternity of time AND enough hours in a day IF we get our priorities
straight. A little slow-down will lead
to a richer and fuller life. I am guilty
of Soul ADD. May I remember that
urgent=slow. Take the time to stop and
smell the roses!
WEDNESDAY, September 24 Silk Grace
Psalm 102:25-28 GNT
Long ago you created the earth….
they will
all wear out like clothes….
and they
will vanish.
But you
are always the same,
and your
life never ends.
Our
children will live in safety,
and under
your protection
their
descendants will be secure.
“What if, instead of
discounting the current moment, the uncontrollable, the simply given – what if
I counted it – and on the God who controls it all?
What if all our
running around is only our trying to run away from God – the great I AM – the power
in the present moment?
What if I woke to now
and refused to hurry because I didn’t want to refuse God?
What if I didn’t
discount this moment but counted it for what it is – God here?” (AV)
In God there is no
time, only eternity – or more simply, only now. (AV)
What is one
of the widely used phrases now, ‘Live in the Moment’. It can be abused as a careless, wreckless way
of living, life without regard to any future.
But there is something to be said for LIVING in the moment, for truly
savoring the seconds we have and rejoicing in them. Praise the now moments. Try to revel in each minute of God-grace
within grasp. If we do, I think we’ll
find our day is filled with life, not hurry.
THURSDAY, September 25 Recognizing
Grace
1 Corinthians 7:29,31
MSG
…time is of the essence. There is no time to waste,
so don’t complicate your lives unnecessarily. ….Deal as sparingly as possible
with the things the world thrusts on you. This world as you see it is on its
way out.
Life
is not an emergency. Emergencies are
sudden, unexpected events…but is anything under the sun unexpected to God?
Life
is dessert – too brief to hurry. It
takes a full twenty minutes after your stomach is full for your body to
register satiation. How long does it
take your soul to realize that your life is full? (AV)
Our
time is like a fragile bubble held with care…if we hurry, it will pop. But if we stop and savor, we might see the
rainbow refractions of God-grace pouring out.
The more we recognize God in these moments, the more we slow down and
honor God with thanks FOR these moments, the fuller our soul will become. Where will I see bubbles today on the job? I saw the magic yesterday in Malachi's grace during Habitat opening - his words, his actions, his delight in life. Look for bubbles; hold them with awe. Grace is inside.
I need help. What a simple prayer. What a powerful prayer. It acknowledges before our Abba-Dada that we are children who need help. God can provide that help. We ask. Think of the assurance we had as kids when we finally brought an issue of concern before our parents, knowing they could help solve the problem. The relief that someone with more knowledge and insight would have our back. God can provide that relief and assurance if we simple take our worries and concerns, even the petty everyday problems, and lay them before Abba. 
We often focus on what Jesus did on this occasion of his first miracle. But Mary proves the power of a simple prayer in this instance. She comes to Jesus with a problem: the hosts are about out of wine. She doesn't complain, she doesn't blame or accept blame, she isn't critical of the situation, she doesn't tell Jesus what to do. She simply states the problem. And then what does Mary do? She WALKS AWAY! It is now out of her hands. She lets go of the matter and walks away to let God go to work. (Although she does tell the servants to do what Jesus says - she knows before Jesus knows himself that he will act!)
This verse is part of the story of the woman who asked daily for justice and the corrupt judge finally relented just to quiet her. Sometimes the squeaky wheel really does work! This isn't a form of nagging God, but just simple reminders that the problem still exists - and that we are patiently waiting for God's resolution...in God time. Why persistent patience? Again, back to step 2, God is good and God knows best! 