grace to be & faith to see

As I write my very first blog post ever [taking a moment to let that sink in]. I am so aware of the current circumstances that we find ourselves in. Who could have imagined that we would all be encouraged to slow down to an almost complete halt in a world that seemed to keep picking up the pace. In a few months time we may forget what this experience has felt like, but I hope we don't forget the life lessons we have been taught.

Personally, this time of national lockdown has had many emotional highs and lows. I love spending time in my own space, so logically and initially, isolation was a positive experience. But like any normal human, when you're told you cannot do something, you want to do that even more [it's such a mind-mess]. Two weeks of isolation was manageable, I didn't feel the need to go anywhere, but as the next week went on I just really needed a change of scenery [as I'm sure many of you are feeling the same way].

This really started to mess with my mind, resulting in a serious lack of productivity. And yes, there were many things to do to keep busy but sometimes you just don't have the motivation to do even the simplest tasks if you're not in the right frame of mind.

As a committed follower of Jesus, I choose to allow the Word of God to direct my life. So naturally this was the first place I went to for encouragement and guidance.

In the New Testament, Paul, a catalyst leader of the early Church experienced so many unexpected challenges in his life, and as I read about Paul's life experiences I felt like he could really relate to our current situation. He was imprisoned many times, treated unfairly and suffered a lot. Yet, despite all the hard times he went through he looked at life with a beautiful perspective.

This is his encouragement to a church in modern day Greece:

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 MSG

So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.

I was so inspired by this scripture, and it brought to mind two thoughts: grace to be and faith to see. The only way we're able to not give up is as a result of our dependance on God, equipping us daily with His grace [and not the grace you say before eating a meal]. Life around us may not be going according to plan, and could even be "falling apart on us," but our external circumstance doesn't stand a chance when we know that God is unfolding grace to renew and restore us each day. This grace equips us to be who we are created to be.

Food is probably the worst thing to think about right now because we're all needing to social distance from the fridge, but I love the explanation that Eugene Peterson [the author of The Message Translation of the Bible] uses to describe faith. Small potatoes that become a lavish celebration, [I'm pretty sure he is thinking about amazing roast potatoes] and that is what faith is like. We can only see the potatoes, but God can see the roast potato banquet that he is preparing.

We need faith to see that although our current circumstances [small potatoes] may not be what we expected, that big plans may have needed to change, and that uncertainty is so real, yet if we hold onto The One who is in control we can see the future with a different perspective.

I choose to shift my perspective from focusing on reality, which limits my faith to focusing on God who equips me to be, and gives me the faith to see.

JCS