Thank Goodness for Grace

Do you ever just stop for a minute and think "thank goodness for grace"?

For me that seems to be a reoccurring phrase of the past few years, when I look back on who I just a year ago I am nothing but grateful for a faithful God, who continuously seeks us.

  

  The truth is when I was talking to a friend the other day about who I was when I came to college, I realized I really had nothing good to say about myself. Not to say that at the time I had any idea that I would look back at who I was and be appalled at the shallow person I was. Now to the world and the culture I grew up in, I think that most people wouldn't realize how broken I was. I mean I was at church anytime the doors where open, most of my friends were Christians, and my summers were spent on mission trips, but when it came to my heart, I had a deep problem of insecurity and honestly bitterness. This was a problem that developed over time and got bigger the more I stuffed it down because I didn't want anyone to know that I didn't have my life perfectly together. The climax of this issue came when I was a senior in high school and broke my  ankle in a little bit of a freak accident. my dreams of cheering in college were crushed, I thought, this is the worst, I thought. (but if  I'm being honest i might have been more bothered by the fact that someone else was going to become the point dancer for my competitive teams, and that was my thing, I thought "no one could actually replace me.") As I said I was pretty insecure and being great at something gave me value, and this injury took that value from me. I pretty much got to a point where I stuffed the bitterness and pain down so far that I became numb to it. I put on a smile and thought I had everyone fooled. Truthfully I threw myself about a nine month pity party. At this point I think that no matter how much I tried to convince myself that I was trusting the Lord, I really wasn't. I pretty much decided that I was fine, that I was wanted, that I was great (all of these being in the world's eyes.)  I decided that high school didn't end the way i wanted so college would be picture perfect, little did i know God had not thrown in the towel teaching me what I so desperately needed to learn but so stubbornly refused to see. As I talked a little about before on this blog, my freshman year certainly didn't start the way i planned, I ended up dropping out of rush, broken by the fact that "no one wanted me, " I went months feeling like I was worth nothing because of that. So there I was an 18 year old girl who came from a great home, had great friends and had just made her dream school her new home, but all I cared about was that i deserved better, I deserved to be wanted by these things. I was a girl who was terrified to let anyone in because it looked like I had my life together until you got too close.

 My mindset about this time was: God, I have lived a life for You, I have lived in a constant trial for what feels like forever don't I deserved good things, deserve to get what I want? I was a "good Christian" so I deserved better, right? WRONG.

There is a story that Jesus told while he was on earth, that if you have grown up in church I am certain you have heard countless times. This is the story of the prodigal son. You have heard it, right? It’s about a father that has two sons, one takes his inheritance and leaves home recklessly, the other stays, but then the reckless son comes home and the father takes him back in. Well that’s the super short version. When we teach on or hear this lesson we focus on the “horrible” son who leaves, but I want to look at the other two characters. First prodigal is a weird word so let’s define it one definition is; having or giving something on a lavish scale. Okay so  I guess that could describe the son, but what I really think that describes is the father. The father has been shamed, and dishonored by his son, but when after a long while he sees his son coming home he RUNS to meet him. Now in this story the father is God, God is faithful right? Persistent?  Gracious? Yep, all of those, we are nothing without God and we dishonor him but his response is not to give up on us; it is to run to us hold us in his arms and whisper “Welcome Home, my dear.”  So we see God is grace. God is love. God is faithful. So as I stated before, growing up I pretty much thought I did the right things and at my heart I believed I deserved better, I mean I didn't go out and get wasted on the weekends or sleep with my boyfriend, so I guess I really thought this story wasn't for me. Until I heard it from not just the reckless child’s perspective, there is an older brother a brother that stayed with the father and when his brother came home, basically had a pity party and said why him? I am the one who was here the whole time. And the father answers him saying you have been with me, all that is mine is yours but now we celebrate the return of your brother. He was lost and is now found. See the Lord is like this he says to each of us come to me. My grace is enough to cover you.  

I think that over the past few years, I had a slanted view of salvation, I think that I saw it for what made me feel best at the moment, I think it took me seeing that my value is solely dependent on what the Lord sees, to also realize that the same is true for others. I think that realizing that is what made me take a step back and see that there is no one on earth that I “deserve” better than. I had to realize that it wasn't about my momentary happiness; that trials or hard times weren't punishment, but that God was refining me so that I was able to be a picture of the gospel.

We serve a prodigal God, a God that lavishes his grace upon us when we deserve nothing. 

So one of the things i have learned to love about the Lord is that he is persistent. HE IS FAITHFUL. He is faithful in that he loves us always, but he is also faithful in that he doesn't give up on you when you take FOREVER to get it. It took me about two years to truly understand the “why” to difficult things. Here at Auburn I am involved in Cru and we have been going through a series in 1 Peter focusing on "Living as Exiles" one of the lessons was on trials specifically fiery trials; one point was that these trials refine us. If we think of ourselves as workmanship of God, as precious metals being refined think of this question and the answer a metal-smith gave, "How do you know that silver or gold has been refined enough? When you can see your face in it. " So these hard times they refine us, they shape us to look more like Christ.

So if we refine our mindset, we can see its not really about us. You see it is about Christ and the gospel, I am slowly realizing that our lives should be a picture to the world of the gospel. Before this year my thought process was centered on me, and how "good" I was, how I deserved. It was my pride, my pride that became the enemy of grace. I wanted to earn it, I didn't want to let anyone know I needed help. Here is what I finally understand: I alone am worth nothing, I am not good enough, and in my sin I don't deserve anything at all. BUT GOD, don't lose sight of the significance of those two words, but God is gracious. And thank the Lord for that! In Him and Him alone i have infinite value, I am desired, I am important, because the Lord has grace and he sought me out of my self-consumed rebellion and held me in his arms and says to me " you are mine, I love you, you can do nothing to change that."  

In the story it isn't about the son. He didn't do anything to deserve forgiveness. It was about the father and his grace and unfailing love. In life it isn't about us, or how good or bad we think we are. It is about the father and his grace and unfailing love for us. 

This semester I have really learned that nothing matters but Christ.  Our lives, our love, and our relationships should be a picture of the gospel, and that is a picture of grace.

Christ is enough.

Grace is enough.

 And that is the gospel.

thank goodness for grace. 

Failed but not a failure

I am a little obsessed with the show One Tree Hill... It's a drama, its kind of dumb but I love it. My roommate and I spend many a night watching our favorite episodes that span over nine seasons. This show, might be over dramatic and at some points completely unrealistic but the funny thing is there is some great advice or quotes that come from it. Now don't let my quoting of a stupid teen drama take away from the realness of the words.
  "People are gonna label you, it's how you over come those labels. That's what matters."
Think about that. How real is that? If you really think about these labels we have to overcome, I think you will realize that there are two types of labels we must overcome. At least I did. That is the labels of other and the labels we put on ourselves. The Lord has really been teaching me this over the past year, through so many ways.
  First the labels of others, that's pretty self explanatory. I mean I do it myself, that's the super involved girl or that's the girl who always has a 4.0 or that's the ΧΩ. Like I have said before these labels aren't necessarily bad, but if we are honest what follows soon after those surface labels is that we decide to label them based on our grading scale for sin.
 This aspect of labeling goes with both the personal and public side of it. We as people  have created a "sin scale." You know what I'm talking about, we see or hear of something someone else has done and we say to ourselves "at least I'm not that bad." I sure know I do that all the time. I label myself as a good person, based on my scale of good and bad sins. But the thing is those labels I have created  mean nothing because I am just as bad as anyone else NO MATTER WHAT THEY HAVE DONE. We are all on the same desperate level of our need for God. Here is the best way I can describe it, so we see sin as if we were walking around downtown NYC with all the different sized buildings (the different heights measuring the level of sin) but God sees sin as if he was looking down from a plane (all of those buildings look equal, level)
In the book Jesus is by Judah Smith, he talks about this specifically. He says that what we must realize is that it doesn't matter how good we think we measure up, all that matters is that we realize our need for Christ. The blood that saved that murderer on death row is the same blood that saves me, because I with whatever sins I have done I  am just as separated from God as they are. Realizing the truth of this gets rid of us using labels to boost our ego, but in the same way it is important that we rid ourselves completely of them.
    In one of the Bible studies I am in we are talking about the truth that failing doesn't make you a failure. In a society where this comfort of labeling is so present, it is easy to see yourself as a failure. I have definitely struggled with this, when we are looking for approval and comfort from the successes of life we will always feel that we come up short. But because you "fail" at something that doesn't make you a failure.
  We put labels on ourselves, we put labels on others and we assume they label us, and we let those things define who we are. But if we can understand that overcoming those labels means seeing ourselves as others as The Lord sees us we have to understand that once we are believers what He sees is Jesus, He sees this perfect child that he desires and knows better than we know ourselves. He sees success, and significance.
 So like good ole One Tree Hill says "People are gonna label you, it's how you overcome those labels. That's what matters."

You are more than any circumstance or failure, you are loved by the God of the universe.