For all that is joyous and truly freeing about living a redeemed life, there is an equally pervasive weightiness that we experience in the most mundane moments of daily life. You know what I’m talking about.
It’s the stuff that weighs on your mind even after you watch the fun movie, go out for coffee with a friend, or get a good workout in at the gym. It’s the everyday struggle of living as a fallen person, with other fallen people, in a fallen world. It’s the rub of disobedient children, misunderstanding co-workers, or relationships in need of reconciliation. It’s everyday…in our homes, while we work, among God’s people. It’s the point at which our redemption reality intersects our “already and not yet.”
Paul Tripp summed it up very succinctly for me this weekend at the conference I attended at my church:
“God will take you where you never intended to go in order to produce in you what you couldn’t achieve on your own.”
He shared, in the most poignant of ways, that “it is never an interruption when our eyes see or our ears hear the sin of another person. It is never an interruption; it’s always GRACE.”
- It’s grace when our children bicker, because we have yet another opportunity to point them to the loving rest of our Savior.
- It’s grace when our spouse loses his temper, because it is God’s gift that we might exercise forgiveness and encouragement.
- It’s grace when we experience hardship, because it is Christ who gets the glory for sanctifying us THROUGH the pain.
It is all grace. It’s uncomfortable grace.
It’s uncomfortable because He is not interested in simply relieving the difficulties we face in relationships or elsewhere; he desires to redeem us through them.
What difficulties are you experiencing that you never intended for your life?
Those very difficulties are the exact circumstances in which God INTENDS for you to realize your own weakness and acknowledge his strength…his sufficiency…his redeeming power.
I’ve been thinking on these things all weekend. I’ve been considering what makes me happy and what gets me down in relationships…with my husband, with my children, with my family and friends. What brings me the greatest joy in relationships is not usually the opportunity I have to be long-suffering; it is when I have to suffer the least.
I’m under conviction about my expectations for ease and comfort.
I’m under conviction about how interrupted I feel when others around me sin (and how blind I can be to my own).
I’m under conviction about what I expect God’s grace to feel like in my daily life.
I’m finding grace in the everyday, all over again.
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Now let’s link up in community…
Welcome to GraceLaced Mondays, a link up dedicated to sharing any and all blog posts by like-minded lovers of grace–God’s grace! Grace is found in the everyday when you are intentional about taking note of it…and I invite you to share your story, great or small, of how everyday moments are full of Grace.
*Link back to GraceLaced –so your readers can find us here– by copying and pasting the code below into the html page of your post. (Make sure you scroll down and copy the entire code, thanks!)
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So good, Ruth. More and more I am coming to terms with this very thing. These hardships are meant for our good. We’re not just to be biding our time till we get to that pleasant place; we’re to be growing through them and God is using them to make us more like Him. Thanks for this reminder today.
Yes, I’ve spent much time “biding my time”, and am learning to stop waiting for things to get easier, simpler, more comfortable. Thanks, Barb!
I always say that the most precious lessons are learned in the hardest trials. It’s true that for the Redeemed, all is grace, whether comfortable or otherwise. For even if we can’t appreciate these hardships now, they produce in us something that impacts eternity.
Yes, Rina! So true. Thanks for linking up!
Thank you! I so needed this this morning. God is always “on target”, if we listen. Thank you for sharing your heart and soul with us. He uses you daily. May He continue to bless YOU, your ministry, your home and especially your precious family.
Thanks so much, Julie. I so appreciate the encouragement and the praise that He is working in and through each of us!
Ruth, this is so true! I just finished a Bible study by Priscillia Shirer on Jonah, Navigating the Interrupted Life. It really helped me to see what we call interruptions as God-driven interventions. “Uncomfortable Grace” – what a good way to put it.
Ooh, that sounds like a good study. I haven’t heard of it!
This week has been one long, horrible trial. But the first day it began, God reminded me, so wonderfully, that this was intended to help me to bear fruit for His kingdom. So that is what I’ve been doing: praising Him in the storm, and so many people have borne witness to it. I feel like my suffering is a gift. It’s broken me, changed me, and is working to make me more like Jesus…
Praise God, Jessie! That is so encouraging!
Thank you Grace! This is where I am at this very moment…and then I read your post…This too is grace! Oh how we need God’s Wisdom and strength to find grace in these moments! Blessings to you today!
You are so welcome, Diane!
Thanks for your post my love. Isn’t it so important to recognize that this perspective only works when you have a big view, which is to say, a Biblical view of God. If we see God as being at the mercy of our choices then difficult circumstances drive us to make choices to try and change them instead of believing that God will use all circumstances to sanctify us. All praise to our sovereign God!
That’s just it…I must cultivate an ever-increasing view of God. Pray that I grow in my perspective!
Ouch. you’re killing me with this line: “What brings me the greatest joy in relationships is not usually the opportunity I have to be long-suffering; it is when I have to suffer the least.” Lovely post, Ruth.
Thanks, Melissa. It’s so convicting, right? I’m always wishing that my relationships can simply point to what a low-maintenance, easy-going, ever-encouraging friend/daughter/sister/wife/mom that I am.
It’s so easy to disregard the evidence, but I really must look at the truthfully…
I just stumbled across your blog and LOVE it! I have been a Christian for my entire life, but the past year have been changed through this revelation of Grace!! I linked up today, as I just wrote this post about Grace on my blog. Thank you for your real heart, filled with HIS truth!! http://graceeveryday.org/grace-a-license-to-sin/
Thanks for linking up, Maria. Grace indeed changes us…and shows us that the gospel is about Him and not us. Blessings to you!
“Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity….” Jeremiah 29:12-14
I pray the Lord will burden me to seek him – so that he may release me from the ‘captivity’ of my emotions. So that in the moments of ‘uncomfortable grace’, I will choose to accept His grace and bless others rather than hurt them.
Ruth, this is exactly what I needed to read this morning. Thank you for these truths and for sharing wisdom gleaned from your conference – Tripp is a favorite!
I’m encouraged to know that God is at work in each of us–even in similar ways. Thanks, Tresta!
Thank you for sharing what you learned at the conference. Don’t you just love Paul Tripp? He is definitely a huge gift to the church.
I had never heard Paul Tripp in person. It was really a treat! He is a great communicator of the gospel!
This post blessed my heart today. Thank you!
Once again Thank you for hosting this link up and writing on topics so close to my heart. It’s these kinds of inner struggles that can destroy us just as easily as more obvious and open sins can. I’m so thankful God’s grace covers it ALL.
Me, too, Karina. So, so thankful for grace! Hugs and blessings to you!