Finding Grace

Finding Grace

This thought struck me this morning – Finding Grace.  How many times in my life have I found grace. 

The premise for this thought is Hebrews 4:16.  We are encouraged to “approach God with confidence, so as to receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

This kind of grace is of the God-kind.  It flows from his merciful and kind heart, because He always has His eyes on us. 

God’s grace has come to me in the form of a subtle sense, an inner voice, if you will that guides me to do or not to do a certain thing.  After the fact, I have found that nudging to be spot on.  That was God’s grace.

I’ve experienced God’s grace as a presence in the middle of difficulties and hard places in life.  When the challenges come, I still experience God’s grace that helps in our time of need. 

The verse that is highlighted above takes some mulling and some cogitating.  Often, we humans seem tentative in approaching God.  Our shame, our angst, our bad choices, our past life often gets in the way and we reason, “Why would God even want to see me or talk to me.  I’m such a

doo-doo (long OO).

That is the exact opposite of what this verse says.  It is as if God is saying, “I know you.  I formed you. I know your proclivities, I know your instinct and your nature.  I know your faults and failures and your victories and success.  I love you through it all.  All I want is your heart to trust in me.  Believe in my love, for I do love you everlastingly.”

If you are one who needs to find grace today, come back to the God who invites you in.  Whatever you face, GRACE can be yours in this moment of need.

Internet Church Blog Site

P Michael Biggs

Hope~Encouragement~Inspiration

Thoughts on Prayer for Those Who Don't

Thoughts on Prayer 

for Those Who Don’t

Non-pray-ers can pray too, you know.  It’s not rocket science – this thing called prayer.  You don’t have to have a degree in anything to say a prayer.  You just need to do it when the need comes over you.

I love what Mary Oliver says.

“Just patch a few words together

and don’t try to make them elaborate;

this isn’t a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.”

It’s the willingness and the need to do this thing called prayer … not your eloquence, nor your degrees, not even your bank account or your intellect, and especially not where you were born or where you currently live.

I love her line “just patch a few words together.”  God is listening for your heart to speak, not your syntax, not your impressive vocabulary. 

I have this quote in my files.  I don’t know who said it, but it works.  “God speaks heart murmurings.”

There is one more line that needs highlighting.  “This isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks”

Many people, and I’ve heard this all of my years in church attendance, think they have no eloquent thoughts to offer to God, so they keep quiet.  Praying is not a contest.  No, no.  It is an honest murmuring of a sincere heart seeking a God who loves them and cares. 

And the crowning thought … “a silence in which another voice may speak.”

Wow!  To think that we might possibly have a direct and personal link to God and He has something to speak into our lives.

I am amazed!

God becomes small enough to enter into our world, our thoughts, our prayers, our concerns. 

I’ve written enough.  It’s your move.

Internet Church Blog Site

P Michael Biggs

Hope~Encouragement~Inspiration