I don't know how else to describe the feeling that it is to feel as if you are awaking from a dream, the reality that you experienced turns out to be an illusion and what is real and true, to this you have been blind. The Bible says that Jesus opens blind heart and unstops deaf ears. Well my spiritual eyes and ears were pretty mislead to think that what I perceived was reality. There is so much to unpack, of which i shall not write for now, but let me just say, Jesus is gracious and my prayer is that I would come to know him as he rightly is. However I ask to know the incomprehensible and all powerful, infinite God who exists apart from all and through all things exist...but I want to be close to Him more than ever and I am so grateful for Him opening me the way he has at this time and for the people He is using in my life, their patience, their grace - reflections of the Father.
So having got way off track, I now identify in a whole new way with Martha and her exasperation with Mary sitting at Jesus' feet. Grace is for everybody and we all need it desperately, especially if we think otherwise. That would be me it turns out.
In a book called Scandalous Freedom, the author Brown talks about when we focus on getting better, no on really gets all that much better; what we really learn is that we can't really get all that much better. But if our primary aim is to know Jesus (to sit at His feet) whether or not we are getting better isn't the point anymore (if we do get any better it's all Him, but even if we don't, He still loves us).
Tonight I set out on a walk. I had asked the Lord if I could get away for a few days, basically I wanted to hide from some things happening in my life. And though I was still hoping to go, I sensed him inviting me not to go away if the reason was to hide. So as i'm walking I meet a former neighbor I hadn't seen in a long time; that was fun and his family had been on my mind. Another lap around the park and we pass again, this time chatting a little bit more. I notice a softball game going on in a corner of the park and just hang out there for a while to watch. In the end, besides considering jointing a softball league, I got to have a pretty cool chat with a guy also there watching. A friend of the coach, he was just there for the evening and within minutes we were talking about things of grace. Having grown up in the church and having a pastor for a dad, he too had struggled with feeling that weight of trying to be better, that mustering up the appearance of goodness in one's own strength. I absolutely love that things Jesus has been teaching me were relevant and timely to that conversation. Then to top it all off as I headed home in the evening twilight, I run into my neighbor again, this time with his whole family and it was just sweetness to see them again. This month I will be teaching a ballet workshop and really wanted to invite their girls, so it was perfect timing and I love that what was just a walk and talking to Jesus turned in to. It was sweet and refreshing encouragement.
