Today’s Grace

My mom has always told me I have ‘hard feet’. Not soft and lovely with long pretty toes but hard and dry and easily calloused. She said it’s because of my heritage. Not sure which since I have Scottish, Irish, French, French Canadian and American Indian but it’s one of those I guess.

It bothers me because I want soft, beautiful feet not dry, hard and easily calloused. Long, pretty toes, perfectly manicured. And because they are hard and not pretty I don’t really like my feet.  I see dry skin and my pitiful toes and feel utter disdain for my feet.

But on the bright side, I can walk barefoot and not worry too much. My feet can handle the grass and the gravel, pavement, sand and mud. I have what I have and I can’t change it. I can walk just about anywhere and not worry too much about it which, come to think of it, might be a good thing!

 

Now if only I can learn to walk in His footsteps, wherever He calls me. Walk in His love and His grace.

Because the only grace I will ever have is today’s. I can’t live on yesterday’s or grab tomorrow’s.

Each morning is pregnant with grace. Ripe with the possibility of catching a glimpse of Him in a toddler’s tantrum, a leisurely breakfast, a friend’s tears, a hurt or a heartache.

It’s the challenges, the daily grind and the trials that work together to form us into the image of God. Those small things, those daily details, particularly the ones that annoy us, working together to remind us how much we need Him…

…every. single. day.

I know because I’m always thinking about what could be or what I should have done/said/been. I miss the ‘now’ and I end up missing moments that will never return.

The manna of His grace shows up every morning. It’s fresh and clean and white and tastes like honey. It’s just enough for today. If you try to gather more than you need you find that it’s rotted and filled with worms.

We only get enough grace for today. We can’t store it up till tomorrow and we can’t depend on yesterday’s. Today is the only day and today’s grace is the only grace we have. Worm-free, fresh. And if I’m not careful, well, I’ll miss today’s grace. 

And each day I have choices to make about the grace in my life.

• I can manufacture grace or manifest it into a life of love.
• I can ignore grace or invite it to indwell my heart.
• I can deny grace or deliver it to others every day.
• I can try to understand grace or undertake to know the one who gives it with an open and generous hand.

He’s teaching me to abide in grace. Reminding me His yoke is easy, His burden light. My burdens weigh me down, stifle the life, crash dreams, and fill my heavy heart with guilt.

But He whispers in my heart that He adores me. Everything about me. The good, the bad and the ugly and believe me, there’s plenty of ugly. His death on the cross wasn’t for the perfect ‘me’.

It was for the sin-soaked me. The rebellious me. The imperfect me where sin dwells in spite of my best efforts.

My imperfect life is where His grace is released and begins it’s perfect work. Slowly, daily, fashioning my heart into the woman of God He created me to be. He takes me as I am and shows me a little more of who He is each day.

He’s not what I thought He was at the beginning. He’s not the Christian book store art print Jesus, all smiles and meek carrying a lamb on His shoulders. Tan and blowdried, perfect teeth and bright blue eyes. A matinee-idol Jesus. No, He’s not that.

He’s strange and strong; resolute and remarkable; odd and off-putting; and far, far ahead of me. I do my utmost to follow His fading footprints, wherever they lead. Some days I run, mostly I walk and many days the victory is in simply standing.

Because sin keeps reminiding me that it dwells in me. But grace shouts: redeemed or not, Jesus loves every bit of every atom that He created. I can only put one hard foot ahead of the other, take one day at a time, pick up my cross and be willing to die today. And what’s true for me is true for you.

He loves every bit of you. He loves the frustrations and the failures, the tragedies and triumphs of your life. The sweat and the struggle. The hurts and the healing. The imperfect and the ugly. Because you’re fearfully and wonderfully made by Him. In fact…….

…..You’re worth dying for. 

You didn’t earn it and it will never make sense. It’s grace and I can’t even scratch the surface of all it means. But that’s okay. I don’t need to fully understand it; I just need to live it out and walk it out today.

So, let His words ring in your spirit today friend, grasp today’s grace.  And let Him wash your feet because……. He thinks they are beautiful.

 

2 Corinthians 12:9 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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.