Thursday, March 18, 2021
Like the Moon in the sky and in the water,
We may think we choose our way,
Doch God guides us and inspires us
to live as reflectors of Christ’s Light!
Proverbs 16:9
The human mind plans the way, but the Lord directs the steps.
2 Corinthians 3:5
Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God.
Words of Grace For Today
Who are we?
We are fallible and arrogant, needing reminders regularly of how fragile our grasp on reality, truth, and goodness are.
We are able to give God all God is due: our lives in service to others so that they may experience and know the Grace of God which gives us renewed life, even though we deserve nothing but condemnation and expulsion to the emptiness of the Void.
Rather than giving us what we are due, God forgives us, redeems us, renews us and sanctifies us so that we can reflect the Light of the World to all in need.
It is only because God so constantly renews us and makes us holy (sanctifies us) that we are able to do anything good.
The human tendency is to forget God, God’s gifts, and claim all that is good is our own doing. This is a foolish error that costs us so much each day, and it costs so many other people so much each day.
We may think we make plans that we are capable of carrying out. So it is only with sinful plans! Any good plans we make, as well as the steps we take, are possible only because God has saved us from ourselves and through the Holy Spirit permeating our being inspires us to things so much better than we could ever do or imagine on our own.
God does not control us like a puppeteer. God inspires us, and if Luther is correct, we can at most surrender to doing what God asks of us and moves us to be and do. We, on the other hand, have free will (not to do good) only to do sinful and evil things, selfish things, destructive things, common things … and then lie to ourselves about how ‘good’ our evil ways are.
Oh, God, save us from our own sin, and the deceptions that allow us to think we can be anything without you! (Like thinking we can plan our own good way.)
God, help us to see the wonders of being and doing as you inspire and enable us.
God, help us extend this same Grace to all other people, sinful and evil as they are.