Discovering True Intimacy with Our Savior

Misplaced Grace

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I misplaced my grace yesterday.  I do my best to keep up with it most days, but every once in a while, I’ll set it down and forget it.  Of course, once I realized my grace was missing, I looked for it:  under cushions of comfort, wads of weariness, and files of frustration.  And don’t you know, it was in the last place I looked?  Under my piles of pride.  

After losing something so valuable, I took a survey of my spiritual surroundings and tidied up a bit.  I threw away the trash so that I could keep track of the treasure.

As I put away my cushions of comfort, I discovered compassion.  I found forgiveness under the files of frustration; and rest under the wads of weariness.  Isn’t it just like God to give us more than we deserve when we’re looking for something we shouldn’t have lost in the first place?  Which, by the way, is the very definition of grace.

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.” Ephesians 4:31-32

On Loan

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I am often amazed at how God prepares our hearts for what lies ahead.

I bowed out of a trail run Saturday morning with some hilarious women because I was in the “Jesus Zone.”  I was having some sweet communion with My Savior and just couldn’t bring myself to part from his presence.  During my time with him, he led me to a book entitled, “Peace, Perfect Peace” by F.B. Meyer.

It is a short book.  One that I finished in about an hour.  Little did I know, that in less than twelve hours of closing the cover, I would need it.

I received shocking news later that day that my dear, sweet friend, Rob Murray, died suddenly.  As I began to talk to God through the fog of my feelings, he reminded me of the words I read earlier, “The moment of absence is the moment of presence. As the spirit withdraws itself from the body, closing blinds and shutters as it retires, it immediately presents itself in the presence of the King, to go no more out for ever.”

Slowly, God began to raise the curtain of shock and sadness to let the light of his truth shine into my heart: seven hundred and twenty minutes before, he had prepared me for that moment!

My thoughts that evening would alternate between thoughts of how awesome God is and memories of Rob.  I pondered the immensity of God’s love and care for his children.  His well-timed provision, and His generosity in loaning the world Rob Murray if only for a while.

My friend, Rob, now knows the face of Jesus.
He has seen the throne room of God.
He has kneeled at the feet of the King.

And my heart, like Rob’s soul, takes wings under the realization that he is now home and he is happy.  His love for those he left behind is “only altered in its brilliance and intensity.”  He can now love perfectly because he is perfectly loved.

My hope in the days to come is that I can use the lessons that I learned in that small, yet profound book, to comfort those Rob left behind.

“In sore sorrow, He comforts best who says least, and who simply draws near, and takes the sufferer’s hand, and is silent in his sympathizing love.”