Grace

Our minds can’t comprehend it. They really can’t. If they could, everyone would believe in Christ, no doubt about it. But we can’t. Our lowly human minds can’t comprehend the GREATNESS of God. He lowered himself to our level by coming to earth and becoming like us as Christ, but in His very nature is still too GREAT for us to comprehend, to understand and believe by relying on or own knowledge. And this is why we need GRACE.

I am living this lesson. I never before understood fully the concept of grace, and I am convinced I never will until I see God face to face. But I understand it a little better than I did before and I write about it now because it is a concept that will save all of us much grief if we understand it sooner rather than later. Although I am fully aware that everyone needs to experience it on their own to get to this point – it can not simply be understood by words – it is too amazing a realization NOT to write about. I AM NOTHING.

Once you realize this, it is like a weight is lifted off your shoulders. An invisible burden is gone and a wave of understand replaces it. I have been brought to my knees these past couple months like I never have before, crying out to God, questioning His purpose and His love for me like I never thought I would. I have been trying to figure out why God would let this thing happen to me, what I did wrong and what I can do now to make it right and please Him and be the person I have created in my mind that I am sure He wants me to be. I am creating reasons why this happened and solutions to the problems and things I can do and say. And then as I was sitting here on my knees, thinking so hard I could feel the thoughts pushing on my brain and pouring out of me, reviewing the same details as before and thinking the same thoughts, God put a new thought in my head:

I don’t believe in His love. It hurts me to think that and I can’t believe it but it’s true. I have relied on me, on my ideas and my thought and my concepts of love and the identity I have created for myself in Christ. I am so affected by this situation in my life right now because I have gotten to the place where I am finding my identity more in being a Christian than in Christ. And when that identity I have created is questioned, I fall. Because I was not leaning on Christ. I was leaning on my thoughts, on my ideas of who He is and who I am in Him. I did not truly understand or believe that He just loves me. He loves me. I am nothing and I can’t do it anymore and I need help. And He gives it to me. I’m beginning to understand what true love is now. I really am not good enough to please God, I keep messing up, but it’s ok. Christ loves me anyway and He does it all for me.

I can’t comprehend it. This love that causes Him to have such grace, grace that brings Him to die for me and forgive me again and again. He wants us to know this love and trust it. Trust that He loves me despite myself and it is that love that does everything. It is that love that gives me grace and makes me who I am. I don’t need to do anything or redo anything or fix anything. I just need to believe that He loves me this much. Because if I believe this, then I’ll believe that it’s not about my ideas or my plan or what I can do or say. I am loved by Christ and I am the woman he wants me to be and will do what he wants me to do, and what others say or do and what experiences I go through can not take that away. If I truly believe in Christ’s love, I will trust that. His grace covers me and I am His child no matter what happens. I just need to believe that he loves me that much.

And this is why I am so broken right now. It has taken a time like this, the lowest time in my life, to feel like I am really beginning to understand God’s grace, for the first time. I needed to learn that I can’t do it. That it is not about me and my vision and who I think I am and what I should say and do. I needed to learn that I am who I am because of Christ. Because God so loved me that he gave me indescribable grace played out in the form of a man giving His life for a world that does not even understand His purpose. And I am the queen of that world of doubt. Christ loved us so much he died to save a world of sinners, sinners who don’t even recognize their need for a Savior, of whom I am the worst.

Tonight my despairing, wondering heart turned to a heart of praise, because I saw God’s purpose. God had to push me to my knees to lift me closer to Him. It is only the beginning, but for the first time I am realizing I can’t have the control, I can’t rely on myself to be the person I want to be in Christ. I have to believe in His grace. I have to realize that I need Him. I have to believe in His love. Not know it in my head but really believe it and feel it. And it sets me FREE. I understand now what it is to feel FREE. I am who I am because of His grace, not because of anything I have done or can do now. All I have to do is believe in this love. Not understand it, because this is a love that “surpasses knowledge” (Eph. 3:18). But BELIEVE. It is so hard to give up that faith in myself and place it on Someone else. And the miracle is He won’t hurt me. He loves me despite myself.