Let Grace Ring!

July 4th is that one universal and national holiday that we all look forward to each year. Enjoying time off from work and hectic family activities to just relax and enjoy the simplicity of family traditions like grilling, watching the fireworks and relaxing from the demands of our busy days is something we all have in common. The global world also takes this one day to recognize and appreciate what it means to be free. We recognize and honor those that fought for us in the past to insure we would have those freedoms to enjoy now and in the future. Unfortunately, July 4th is just one day. When the holiday celebrations cease—do we experience that freedom and peace in our everyday lives?

Sean McDowell’s article about Freedom from his teen bible study, Chasing Love shares the following:

“According to the Christian worldview, true freedom is not a matter of doing what you want without restraint, but cultivating the right wants and living in obedience to God's will”.

In other words, freedom results when our wants align with God's will. When there is a disconnect between God’s will and our actions we are going to feel off balance. When you consider the alarming rates of suicide, depression and escalating dissemination of drugs that are being prescribed to ease stress and anxiety---clearly, many of us are off balance and seeking the wrong solutions to what the Creator actually intended for our lives. Knowing and acting on God's will is never a temporary solution to peace and freedom.

How do we access this divine guidance to knowing His will? Well, we simply have to believe it exists and then ask for it. Grace I’ve often explained to my students is that super power we need in order to make good decisions that reflect God’s will for us. We are all entitled to this divine assistance, but we neglect or forget to pray for it.

I know that during the challenging days the years of my life when I’m able to do the unthinkable or when I was able to remain strong and hopeful despite unprecedented hardship---I was experiencing the power of this grace that enabled me to do what I could not without  heavenly assistance. It was all grace. I asked for it and I received it!

We also have a moral responsibility to not just be our best selves when it comes to this notion of feeling free, but also helping others who are struggling.  If we are simply existing amidst the “smoke and mirrors” of our lives—we are misrepresenting the truth of God’s love and grace. Those who rely on us for direction need to understand the power of God’s grace that allows that freedom to flourish. That opportunity only comes from remaining empty and unburdened by false prophets and temptations and constantly seeking the grace of God where true freedom and grace rings.

In John Killinger’s The Cup and the Waterfall, the author quotes a psalmist, Annie Dillard who described grace as a waterfall. We can’t fill our cups with it because we are already too full. “Experiencing the present purely,” is being emptied and hollow; you catch grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall”. (John Killinger, The Cup and the Waterfall (Paulist Press, NY, 1983), p.2

When you look at the fireworks falling from the sky next Fourth of July holiday—envision yourself as that empty cup. Allow the falling fireworks of grace to flow freely into your soul.
 
Let grace truly ring!