Why Granted Grace?
We have all heard “God is Love,” and we have not just heard that verbally. We find in scripture: “for God is love,” (1 John 4:8 NLT) and when I say God here, I mean The Triune God: Father, Son, & Holy Spirit. God is Love. We are created in Love, Jesus died on the cross because of Love, God’s Spirit moves us, woos us, all out of Love for us.
We are constantly having God’s love, which we call grace, pour over us. The grace (love) is abundant.
What does this mean? We have Grace (love) from God every moment of our lives, however we don’t take that grace for ourselves? We may even be good at giving grace to others but for ourselves we are awful. What happens is we become our own worst critic. We put ourselves down. The tape in our head will judge ourselves worse than anything the world will dig up for us.
And let’s face it; judgment is rampant all over the world, and with us being our own worst judge not giving ourselves any grace, what hope do we have out there to feel God’s amazing Grace or be the Grace of God reflected in the world around us?
Here’s the thing: we have to learn, to relearn, or just to step into the process of giving yourself grace so you can live into and know God’s overflowing grace in your life. It’s an ongoing process in life that never goes away, and things happen that challenge the process, which is why there may be relearning that has to take place. Truth time—you may even find yourself okay with giving yourself grace in one place of your life and not in another. We do this in the world, too.
This concept has hit close to home recently. This year has been a bit interesting to start the year off, to say the least.
Typically, all our Christmas decorations are down by Valentine’s Day. Well, let’s just say due to a lot of different reasons, some because I am a control freak with how the ornaments go up, we just got the tree put away (in the middle of June). I would normally have been my own worst judge about having my tree still out and beating myself up, but I chose to give myself grace about it, because life was crazy this winter. I looked at the tree as a sign of hope.
I also had major surgery not too long ago. I have not healed as quickly as I would have liked. I have not been kind in my head to myself. Very judgmental, no grace at all. It took several church ladies saying something to for something else the PA at the clinic said to sink in and my mindset to change and for me to start giving myself some grace.
I had to re set my mind, relearn, to give myself grace. It is interesting as I gave myself grace and space I have started to heal better, and I can see God’s love in both parts of my life better.
Where are you needing to step away from your mind’s judgment and give yourself some grace? Where do you need to feel the abundant Love of God that is already being poured over you?
Don’t ever be afraid to ask for help to take the time or have someone help you figure out the best steps. Sometimes we need that to get started on the right path.
Spiritual directors/companions can really help.
