Forfeiting Grace

Thinking back on the pandemic year- 2020 and what a crazy thing it has been to live in NYC, pregnant during this time. The passage that has had the most impact on me this year is Jonah's prayer:


1 From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. 2 He said:

“In my distress I called to the Lord,
and he answered me.
From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.
3 You hurled me into the depths,
into the very heart of the seas,
and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
swept over me.
4 I said, ‘I have been banished
from your sight;
yet I will look again
toward your holy temple.’
5 The engulfing waters threatened me,
the deep surrounded me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.
6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you, Lord my God,
brought my life up from the pit.


7 “When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, Lord,
and my prayer rose to you,
to your holy temple.


8 “Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
9 But I, with shouts of grateful praise,
will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”

10 And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land."

The piece of Jonah's reflection that feels so 2020 relevant is this- "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs."

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last week thinking about my pandemic pregnancy and my pandemic maternity leave. Someone asked me at a gathering in our building garden this weekend how it was having a baby during COVID and I said, "It was awful actually."

When I think about that response, it reveals to me how much grace I have forefeited by clinging to the idol of comfort. I have a healthy baby, a loving partner. I didn’t get COVID when I went to the hospital. I had lots of help in the early days of my child being born. I work at a company that has a great maternity leave policy so I didn’t have to work during those first 12 weeks of my child’s life. 

But instead of singing a song of thanksgiving for these things, I forefeit the joy of a new child by being wrapped up in my comfort idol that tells me that a non-covid pregnancy and baby would have been easier. 

This passage tells us when we cling to things that are not Jesus IT IS WORTHLESS

I forfeit the grace that Jesus offers me when I do that. The grace of my salvation but also the grace he offers me to get through my day and the challenges that lie in front of me. 

So I'm thinking today about these three things-

What idols have I been clinging to in the pandemic?

What grace have I forfeited because I've been clinging to this idol?

How does the salvation that comes from the Lord speak to what I need?

Seek Them Not

Thinking tonight on what I heard L. Clark say at a recent talk. That every day we must submit two things to the Lord.

1.) my will
2.) my desires

These things at the beginning of the day, I must yield to the Lord.

I must imagine Jeremiah 45:5 as if it is being spoken to me:

Seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not.

Is everything I do an offering to the Lord? Or is it for my own comfort/approval/self-glorification?

To God be the glory
For the things HE has done.

Not I.

Build My Life

I will build my life upon your love

It is a firm foundation

And I will put my trust in you, Oh God

And I will not be shaken.

Holy

There is no one like you.

There is none beside you.

Open up my eyes in wonder.

And show me who you are.

And fill me with your heart.

And lead me in love to those around me. 

-Build my Life by Housefires

If I build my life upon the love of Jesus, I will not be shaken. But if I build my life on anything else, it is shifting sand. It is nothing. It will dissolve. No person. No career. No status symbol. No financial security. My health. My home. My family. None of it is a firm foundation.

I will build my life upon your love.

It is a firm foundation.

I will put my trust in you Oh Lord

I will not be shaken. 

My life is not mine to live. It belongs to God alone. My existence is not for my own glory. It is for his. He is the only foundation I can build my life upon.

Amen.

Don't Worry About Evil People

Psalm 37[a]

A psalm of David.

1 Don’t worry about the wicked
    or envy those who do wrong.
2 For like grass, they soon fade away.
    Like spring flowers, they soon wither.

3 Trust in the Lord and do good.
    Then you will live safely in the land and prosper.
4 Take delight in the Lord,
    and he will give you your heart’s desires.

5 Commit everything you do to the Lord.
    Trust him, and he will help you.
6 He will make your innocence radiate like the dawn,
    and the justice of your cause will shine like the noonday sun.

7 Be still in the presence of the Lord,
    and wait patiently for him to act.
Don’t worry about evil people who prosper
    or fret about their wicked schemes.

8 Stop being angry!
    Turn from your rage!
Do not lose your temper—
    it only leads to harm.
9 For the wicked will be destroyed,
    but those who trust in the Lord will possess the land.

10 Soon the wicked will disappear.
    Though you look for them, they will be gone.
11 The lowly will possess the land
    and will live in peace and prosperity.

12 The wicked plot against the godly;
    they snarl at them in defiance.
13 But the Lord just laughs,
    for he sees their day of judgment coming.

14 The wicked draw their swords
    and string their bows
to kill the poor and the oppressed,
    to slaughter those who do right.
15 But their swords will stab their own hearts,
    and their bows will be broken.

16 It is better to be godly and have little
    than to be evil and rich.
17 For the strength of the wicked will be shattered,
    but the Lord takes care of the godly.

18 Day by day the Lord takes care of the innocent,
    and they will receive an inheritance that lasts forever.
19 They will not be disgraced in hard times;
    even in famine they will have more than enough.

20 But the wicked will die.
    The Lord’s enemies are like flowers in a field—
    they will disappear like smoke.

21 The wicked borrow and never repay,
    but the godly are generous givers.
22 Those the Lord blesses will possess the land,
    but those he curses will die.

23 The Lord directs the steps of the godly.
    He delights in every detail of their lives.
24 Though they stumble, they will never fall,
    for the Lord holds them by the hand.

25 Once I was young, and now I am old.
    Yet I have never seen the godly abandoned
    or their children begging for bread.
26 The godly always give generous loans to others,
    and their children are a blessing.

27 Turn from evil and do good,
    and you will live in the land forever.
28 For the Lord loves justice,
    and he will never abandon the godly.

He will keep them safe forever,
    but the children of the wicked will die.
29 The godly will possess the land
    and will live there forever.

30 The godly offer good counsel;
    they teach right from wrong.
31 They have made God’s law their own,
    so they will never slip from his path.

32 The wicked wait in ambush for the godly,
    looking for an excuse to kill them.
33 But the Lord will not let the wicked succeed
    or let the godly be condemned when they are put on trial.

34 Put your hope in the Lord.
    Travel steadily along his path.
He will honor you by giving you the land.
    You will see the wicked destroyed.

35 I have seen wicked and ruthless people
    flourishing like a tree in its native soil.
36 But when I looked again, they were gone!
    Though I searched for them, I could not find them!

37 Look at those who are honest and good,
    for a wonderful future awaits those who love peace.
38 But the rebellious will be destroyed;
    they have no future.

³⁹ The Lord rescues the godly;
    he is their fortress in times of trouble.
⁴⁰ The Lord helps them,
    rescuing them from the wicked.
He saves them,
    and they find shelter in him.

** Judging Others


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Scripture:
“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.^ ^ I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"- Galatians 2:19-21

Reflection:
Recently, I watched the Oscar-nominated movie Philomena which is based on the true story of a woman who goes searching for the child that was taken from her fifty years earlier when she became a pregnant teenager.  I won't spoil the film for you, but throughout the film, Philomena wrestles with a deep feeling of condemnation for the sex she had that led to this child.  She faces persecution from a number of individuals who have made her believe the pain of not seeing her child grow up is penance for this act "of the flesh".

This is a warped misrepresentation of what the gospel tells us.  Paul points out here that if we believe we can gain our own righteousness by keeping the law, then Christ would have died for nothing.  We have made the blood of Christ cheap.  We are essentially saying that we do not need a savior if we believe we are capable of keeping the law (or a certain set of standards) as a way of achieving righteousness.

But the story behind Philomena illustrates an even deeper truth about condemning others for their behavior.  The individuals that berate Philomena (some of whom are nuns) do so because she has not kept God's law.  But that kind of condemnation shows that they believe they have kept "laws" that she has not and therefore, they believe they can judge her for her sins.  When we watch it play out so blatantly in a film like this, it is disgusting before our eyes.  But we all do this in other ways in our own lives.  We are constantly looking at the sins of those around us and making decisions about how we should interact with them, how much grace we should show them, or if we want to have a relationship with them at all based on their behavior.  By doing this, we are essentially saying that we believe we have the key to righteousness.... and others do not.

When we do this, it is as if Christ died for nothing.  We believe we are justified by our behavior but we are justified because of the blood of Christ.  Because he spilled his blood so that we could be made whole.  He died so that we would be made righteous.  That kind of love should motivate us to know that we are not justified by our behaviors and we should not treat others in our lives as though they can be justified in that way either.

Prayer:
Father God, we judge others around us as falling short of what they should be.  And yet we are only justified by the sacrifice of Christ.  We could never obtain righteousness outside of you and for this reason we ask that you soften our judgmental and anxious hearts to those around us.  Humble us to love others in the ways you have loved us and when we are tempted to think less of others pull us back from the brink of our own self-righteousness.

Everybody Worships

"Everybody worships," said David Foster Wallace in 2005. "The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing ... is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough ... Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths ... Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you in your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is ... they're unconscious". -David Foster Wallace. "Transcription of the 2005 Kenyon Commencement Address." May 21, 2005.

Hard Hearted Prayerlessness

Scripture:
Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praises. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him.-James 5:13-15

Reflection:It happens so easily. One day I think I have too much on my plate to spend time with God. The next day I think I’d rather sleep in than get out of bed…but I will pray later…and then I don’t.  Before you know it, days have gone by and I am running on spiritual fumes to keep my job, my relationships and my mood stabilized. I should never be surprised when I come crashing down and realize the neglect of my prayer life has sunk me. And yet I find myself wondering where I went wrong time and time again.

These verses in the book of James show us that prayer is not about petitioning for one aspect of our lives whether it be suffering or celebration. Prayer is about a relationship. Whatever is happening, we should be praying.  We should be as dependent on that relationship as we are for air.  So why aren’t we?

In The Prayer Life, Andrew Murray tells the story of a minister speaking to a woman who is struggling to pray. The minister tells her,” As you go to your inner chamber, however cold and dark your heart may be, do not try in your own might to force yourself into the right attitude. Bow before him, and tell him that he sees in what a sad state you are that your only hope is in him. Trust him with a childlike trust to have mercy upon you, and wait upon him. In such a trust you are in a right relationship to him. You have nothing; he has everything.”

All of our striving and work at having a good prayer life will fail.  Loving Christ is the only way to have the fellowship with God we need.  n a romantic relationship, we often yearn to spend time with our partners. We love our children or family members and long to be with them. We are sad when a friend moves away because we can no longer spend time with them. Love of Christ must drive us to invest in a prayer relationship.  Only when we realize how truly helpless we are without him are our relationships with God nourished.

Prayer:God, we have an aversion to your holiness that keeps us from spending time with you.  We take for granted the privilege that prayer is and choose our own endeavors not understanding that prayer is the lifeblood of our soul.  Without it, we are living in the flesh in our lives.  Help us to fall more in love with Jesus so we are driven by love for him to our knees.

(Originally published by me on The Redemptive Pursuit website)