The journal entry of a...
Illustration
The journal entry of a middle-aged pastor, written during a season of looking back:
How many times these past nineteen years the Living God has lavished on me the twin gifts of Grace and Peace. And how long it has taken me to learn that they are twins! Perhaps at first I could only spot them one at a time. Just lately have I begun to sense their delicate intertwining.
Grace has come in mercy for the multitude of occasions when I have fallen short. It has awakened me to my stumbling and, once the misery of that stumbling has dawned and I have cried out, it is Grace that has invited me to start anew. Grace has offered strength in the midst of my exhaustion. It rekindled hope when all my inner hope had dimmed. When I have been tempted (and who has not!), it is Grace, not my imperfect goodness, that has brought me through.
Peace has come more as an inner sense than as a motivating and restoring force. It has been the feeling that life, once shattered, is whole. It is the knowledge that my very self, broken off and spinning in confusion, has found its root again.
At last I start to see the closeness of the two. Grace is firstborn. Peace follows after. Two gifts -- binding me afresh to the One who is the beginning and the goal of all.
How many times these past nineteen years the Living God has lavished on me the twin gifts of Grace and Peace. And how long it has taken me to learn that they are twins! Perhaps at first I could only spot them one at a time. Just lately have I begun to sense their delicate intertwining.
Grace has come in mercy for the multitude of occasions when I have fallen short. It has awakened me to my stumbling and, once the misery of that stumbling has dawned and I have cried out, it is Grace that has invited me to start anew. Grace has offered strength in the midst of my exhaustion. It rekindled hope when all my inner hope had dimmed. When I have been tempted (and who has not!), it is Grace, not my imperfect goodness, that has brought me through.
Peace has come more as an inner sense than as a motivating and restoring force. It has been the feeling that life, once shattered, is whole. It is the knowledge that my very self, broken off and spinning in confusion, has found its root again.
At last I start to see the closeness of the two. Grace is firstborn. Peace follows after. Two gifts -- binding me afresh to the One who is the beginning and the goal of all.
