Extravagant Grace

Please pardon the “stream of consciousness” style of writing this am.  It’s 1:04am and I can’t sleep because my head is killing me.  I’m so not fond of migraines.  But, you probably knew that.

I’ve been thinking about purpose, my reason for existing, etc.  The Westminster Catechism says that “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”  [I need to insert a little explanation about the word glorify.  The words “glory” and “glorify” get tossed around a lot in Christian circles without anyone really knowing what they mean.  According to my dad who is way smarter than I am about these things, the word “glory” implies reputation.  When we are told to “glorify” God, it means to give HIm a good reputation.  If this is incorrect, Dad, please let me know.]  Back to purpose.  We are to glorify God and enjoy HIm forever.  You know, when I read that it sounds like our job as Christians is pretty easy.  We are to give honor and praise to God, our Creator.  We are to enjoy him forever.

Somehow we make it complicated.  Either we get so caught up in the little steps and looking for confirmation from God every five seconds or we look only at the big picture and completely ignore what is right in our path.  Either way, we end up living a very stressful life.

That’s not what God wants for us.  In Matthew, Jesus tells us to take his yoke upon us for his burden is light.  Of course, it’s light!  He’s GOD!!  But, when we give Jesus our burdens and cares, we can now walk beside Him and live in a more comfortable place.

God wants us to enjoy HIm.  He wants us to be content.  How do we wake up in the morning and feel content with life?

I think that the key is to see God’s extravagant grace.  Not only did Jesus die for our sins and then conquer death through His resurrection, He sent the Holy Spirit to live with us and show us God’s grace every day.  Whether I’m working as a family doctor, as a mom, or selling yarn, I can experience God’s love and grace.

Tonight (or this morning), as I’m writing this with an icepack on my head and a pounding against my skull.  Physically, I’m feeling pretty rotten.  Emotionally, I’m also kind of down.  But I’m starting to learn to be content with each day.  God gives me the grace (the love that I can’t even begin to earn) to get through each day.  Today, I didn’t do much “productive”, but God doesn’t need me to be productive to love me.  I hate having the headaches, but the headaches have given us the chance to open a yarn shop.

My purpose in life is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  And I pray that glorifying God and enjoying Him shows to my children, my husband, and our customers.  God loves me extravagantly.  Because  of that, I am free to love others without worrying about their response.  No matter what, God has said that He loves me.  Hopefully, tomorrow, I can really love the other people I see.  (And, hopefully, my migraine will go away so that I can get out of the house and see someone other than my kids!)

Shaun Groves’ new song “All Is Grace” expressed these ideas well.  Check out the lyrics here.