Sunday, March 09, 2008

grace or fixing things

2 Corinthians 12 (NIV)

The Apostle Paul on grace...
8
Three times I pleaded with the Lord
to take it away from me.

9
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in weakness."
Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses,
so that Christ's power may rest on me.

10
That is why, for Christ's sake,
I delight in weaknesses, in insults,
in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.
For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Me & Jesus talking about
His plans for me...

Lord,
What is it that we REALLY want?

Do we want
Your grace?
or
Getting things fixed?

We say we want to
Keep holding onto You, Jesus...

But we want this closeness
without real cost...though
we give lip service to
"no pain, no gain"
we LIVE as if it just isn't true...
we FEEL that it should not be true.

looking at my life
I realize that grief, loss, sorrow...
all
are powerful
if painful instruments of Your grace...

my heart, all of our hearts...we want solutions...
I want to fix all my broken things...

Lord,
You seem to be less about
fixing things than You are
about drawing me closer to Yourself.
You seem to think that closeness
is preferable to lack of problems
or conflicts...hmmm...

This should be a paradigm for
ALL
our human relationships...after all,
Jesus...You know us best...
better than we do ourselves.

I think You're telling me
that closeness is better than
knowing stuff...
fixing stuff...
controlling stuff...even
ALL the stuff in my life...

kinda different
from how I was brought up, eh?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

dad,
i love reading what you write...you speak truth...always asking how to see yourself as Jesus does.
i love you.
bear