A Taste of Grace

Please forgive me, but I am taking a momentary break from 7 days of baking, or at least from writing about it. There are more eternal things to write about. Which brings me to grace. Grace has become a non-word in our society. Overused and under appreciated, it has come to stand for little more than a name and a prayer said before meals. But it is so much more than that. Over the past four years, I have come to know grace well. Grace is getting anything from God that we do not deserve, which is anything above and beyond wrath, which is exactly what we deserve. Grace is so much more than that though. Grace is free, but grace is freedom. It is freedom from longing and striving. Grace is freedom from shame and guilt, freedom from pain, deep, entrenched pain, freedom from having to earn favor, freedom from being chained to the opinions of sinful people, freedom from an out of control life. The gospel is the single greatest comfort the world could or has ever known, and so much of that comes from grace. The T-ruth is that the King of Kings took on flesh, became a man, lived a sinless life, and died a criminal's death that you deserve to give you righteousness and grace, and then rose again to put death in its place. The reality is that even if you do not believe that, which is nothing short of sheer, utter foolishness, you still experience, quite lavishly I might add, God's grace in your life every day. Food tastes good, sometimes very good, and God did not have to do this. The air feels fresh, the sky is not raining fire, but produces multiple beautiful sights everyday. Chances are that if you are reading this then you can poop in a toilet whenever you want, then when you wake up in the morning you do not have to wonder where your clean water is going to come from. That is something that millions upon millions of people on this planet do not have the privilege of boasting. You have free time (at least enough so to read this). All of this you did not deserve; I do not really care if you agree or not, you did not deserve this, it was lavishly given to you via God's grace. I read an article on grace today, that really highlighted what free grace means, what it does for our lives, how it frees us. 'Free grace'; just let those words permeate through your head for a little bit, meditate on the fullness of what it means for you and how free it has made you. Even when God does not answer our prayers the way we would like Him to, that is grace because He is still acting in our best interests. All of the good and perfect things in life, all of the things we enjoy and all of our ability to enjoy it, these are all examples of God's grace in our lives. I feel as though God has given me a taste of grace lately, a little drop of insight into how unbelievably, unimaginably blessed beyond the furthest reaches of my wildest dreams I am. And it is insane. Just a slight taste, and I realize that all of these crazy examples of grace in my life barely skim the surface of the reality of how much grace God has for me, and all of the freedom that comes from that. I think ultimately what I am trying to get at, not everyone will understand or really realize the depths of at all. Heck, even now as I type these words, I admit that I am not in the highest of spirits and that my body is physically not right, but I also recognize the enormity of grace in my life, that there is so much, so much to be thankful for. I have experienced so much freedom, more than I would have ever imagined. To think of my reality, my situation. My joy is not uncircumstantial; on the contrary, it is completely dependent on my own circumstances, I just happen to have the greatest circumstance imaginable: free grace. The words ring through my head, vibrating, resonating, reassuring me. The freedom that I need to understand right now: I do not need people's approval; I have the approval of the King. That will ALWAYS be True. Absolutely nuts, in the greatest way.

Free Grace. Free Grace. Free Grace.